AM Glass box for Friday
Welcome to the AM Glass Box - your chance to help shape tonight's PM.
You may have read your morning paper and listened to the radio, and have some ideas you want to hear on PM tonight.
Perhaps a question about something in the news you would like answered - or better still, direct experience of something topical. Or maybe there's an aspect to a big story you haven't heard explored that you would like to hear.
Just as the PM Glass Box emulates the meeting we have AFTER the show, the AM Glass Box will be like the real meeting we have every day at 11.00, in that all ideas are welcome.
Just like the real meeting, most ideas that are suggested will not make it on air. But we would like to try this to see how it works. It's best that you make your suggestion before 10am.
Listen to PM
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Another sad morning with the news of yet more loss of soldiers lives in Afghanistan. However let us hope that the brave Politicians sitting in Whitehall who send our soldiers to war in unsuitable vehicles will wake up to their responsibilities and find the money required to provide suitable armoured vehicles before any more lives are needlessly lost.
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JAlexW: wouldn't it be better just to bring them all home?
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Carol (of the wind blown hair) Walker put what I have been saying in my too wordy way. Today programme just now.
The need to ask tough questions. Ok Sequin - it was about the City and the possible slip back towards greedy behaviour but I took it on baord and nodded sagely. Oh and a thank you for putting my question to the gentleman on swine flu. I got a name check! Wow!
But Ms Walker - nice name by the by - Walker lol - back at yer! Are tough questions being asked of anyone else? Not just - er - the City people?
And I do not think Mr Mair a Co need to be quizze. That is their ability in that tough question asking area.
Get Lord Mandelson to testify. He will confirm there is nowt lacking in PM.
And Michael Gove seems to have some beef too! The other day replying to the Government - a remark about the number of repeats shown by the Beeb believe.
That is the BBC, Michael? Who was it? The questioner - allegedly?
I suspect that John H over there at the Today programme. Welsh you know? lol
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You could have a 'PM Cat' to boost your ratings, in honour of 'Mrs Slocombe'..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/8131264.stm
Warning :- Features annoying use of that dreadful verb neologism
'SkyPlussed' and a reference to 'phased' when they really mean 'fazed'..
Am looking forward to hearing some purring from Tango this evening..
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Sequin and Team
Here's a question you might like to address:
I noticed on 'Today in Parliament' the number of MP's voting on Sustainable Energy (Local Plans) Bill and the narrow margins. E.g. Sustainable Energy - Amendments 1 Jul 2009
Ayes 247, Noes 250.
Defeated by 3 votes.
There are 646 MP's. Where were the rest of them?
It raises many questions.
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JK Galbraith in "The Great Crash 1929" states that the memory of the 1929 crash served subsequently to moderate the markets much more effectively than any laws or all the efforts of the regulators.
However, the large degree of restraint exhibited by the markets was related to the severity of the depression that followed the crash.
Do we think that the current recession, which seems to be beginning to ease, will be long enough, or painful enough to moderate the behaviour of the markets?
Personally, I think the current downturn has been neither deep enough, nor long enough to bring about any sort of behavioural change in the markets. No lessons will be learnt, and they will head straight back to patterns of behaviour that will cause another crash in the near future - probably 5 years time.
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@Richard_SM (5):
Where were the MPs? Cleaning moats, feeding ducks and watching large plasma TVs I would assume...
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Sequin and Team
Ref the large Offensive Launched in Helmand, Afghanistan yesterday.
1) How do US/UK forces tell the difference between (a) those defending their homeland; (b) those defending their wives, children, sisters from foreign troops; (c) those naturally resistant to the presence of foreign troops; and (d) those few extremists threatening world security?
2) Is the objective to eradicate all those who have particular political/religious views? A form of demographic cleansing?
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With regard to the agro in Afghanistan, what happened to Geoff Hoons' assertion that we could sort the place out "without a shot being fired"?
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8. Richard_SM
1. They don't. They just blast away, and if they feel threatened, call in air strikes.
2. The objectives are many: it's a training ground now Northern Ireland has ceased to be; it's the war on drugs; it's another round of having a go at Afghanistan since all previous attempts over the centuries have ended in failure; it's testing equipment in battlefield conditions, what Thatcher referred to as 'combat tested' when speaking of British arms sales.
Or perhaps I'm just too cynical.
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Serious answer to (5):
The MPs were doing their main jobs - consultancy, directorships, etc., etc. We know that being an MP is just their second job, for which they get around 150,000 - 180,000 annual remuneration.
Clearly no-one would consider taking a main job for that kind of money.
I find it unbelievable that MPs still think that representing the people can be anything other than a full-time job. Their line, that the other jobs make them more representative, is nothing more than mendacious twaddle.
They are paid to represent us, the electorate. No man can have two masters.
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9. Mansaylo
Did Mutton Geoff really say that? LOL. More stupid than he looks even.
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11. jiffle
Trouble is, how to pass a law making second jobs illegal for MPs when those passing it have second jobs. Conflict of interest doesn't begin to describe it.
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IA and Jiffle: Whilst I'm with you on the idea of second jobs for sitting MPs, I'd also like to make a requirement for any propective MP to have been employed outside the political area (or even unemployed) for at least five years. That way, sitting MPs would have some experience of life outside the bubble of politics. Too many MPs appear to be career polititians who work their way up from student politics, through the Party system as researchers/aides/etc until they become candidates, then finally MPs. This means that they have almost no first-hand knowledge of life outside politics.
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I believe it might have been John Reed who said it would be good to go and come out of Afghanistan without a shot being fired when armed forces minister. I think this was in response to a reporter's question about weather or not British forces would be expected to fight.
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MPs second/third jobs,
I think that if they believe they need to do 'outside' work to keep in touch. they should only be allowed to do it voluntary and only for none interest bodies such as charities and the like. On second thoughts, if they feel they have time enough, outside charitable work should be made compulsory. Wouldn't it be much more of an education and of worth if MPs were found under an overpass bridge or a homeless shelter or a drop in center rubbing up against the real needy.
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funnyJoe (16):
I second that suggestion. The thought of Douglas Hogg or Peter Viggers doing charitable work like that will light up the rest of my day.
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Excellent idea, Joe! (16)
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14. Fearless Fred
'...work their way up from student politics, through the Party system as researchers/aides/etc until they become candidates, then finally MPs'
Thus we get Ed Balls and his ilk.
Yes to voluntary work, but only if the charity wants them, it could be a liability trying to find something for an MP with few discerbible skills to do.
They could start as office juniors...
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... discernible I meant, not discerbible which sounds like a Stanley Unwin kind of word.
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mansaylo - Wasn't that John 'The Heid' Reid's saying ?
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Here's another idea for our politicians:
Let's face it, the politicians given departments (or even shadow departments) are often clueless as to what happens "on the ground".
So, why not give them the first week shadowing various people who'll be affected by their decisions?
For example, the Education Secretary could start off by shadowing a teacher (or two) from a run-down struggling comprehensive, and possibly also a member of admin staff and a LSA (learning support assistant).
Make them fully aware of the processes involved in planning, preparing, delivering, and assessing a lesson - and some point in the week, give 'em the challenge of rounding up, settling and launching the starter to a lesson - preferably with a bottom set class :)
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22. mittfh
Or better still, have MPs from the teaching and other professions... on secondments, fixed terms, sabaticals...
At present, we are asked every four years to 'elect' modern day robber barons who then act much like the originals did - superior, arrogant, despising and distrusting the common people, knowing what's best for us, inventing new ways of circumscribing our freedoms, lining their own pockets...
About time we had real democracy instead of a sham.
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Ref: Punishments for lying to get a child into a better school:
Ed Balls (et al.) just said that the recommended solution is to exclude the child from that school, resulting in the child being moved into a (poor) school that has spaces.
This punishment will never be applied by councils. Why? Because it will be perceived as punishing the child for the lies and pushiness of the parents. Punishing an innocent party is never the solution to any injustice.
Why do politicians (of all parties) keep trotting out 'solutions' that are clearly impractical and won't solve anything? Is it because they think that no-one is actually listening to what they say...
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The BBC website today quotes Gordon Brown on the death of Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe: "Lt Col Thorneloe was someone I know, someone I worked with, someone I admired."
How exactly did he 'know' him? How did he 'work with' him? I think he might have met him for an hour or so on one of his cynical trips to AFG, so they probably had a brew together, but that's about all.
Will the PM stop at nothing to attach himself to anything seen as remotely 'beneficial' or positively reflective, not least since the Prince of Wales also knew him?
Thorneloe gets his Queen Elizabeth Cross whilst Brown trades on his good name, despite HATING the Forces and the MOD.
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Jiffle - I think your reasoning on this is a bit off. Excluding the child from the school is the correct thing to do.
If the child would have not safisfied the criteria for entry to the school had the parents not lied, then why should they be accepted into the school. Granting them entry is likely to result in another child being refused a place.
In this case the politician has trotted out a 'solution' that is both practical and solves the problem.
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@boysaboys (26):
So, you would punish the child (potentially having an impact on their entire life) for the sins of the parents?
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Invisible (20) Phew. for a moment I thought you'd stumbled into the Bible.
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jiffle - Not at all. If you consider that a child not getting a place at the school is punishment, then it is you that is punishing the other child that didn't obtain a place because the first child was accepted on the basis of parental lies.
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Jiffle (27) If the parents know that a child admitted by fraudulent methods will be excluded, maybe they won't try to cheat.
In any case, it cannot be proved that the parents' preferred school will necessarily be the best in terms of lifelong impact. "Choice" is just one of those many carbon-footprint-enlarging inventions of Government, in this case a previous Tory one.
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Ref 11. jiffle
I understand your point, however it's difficult to judge the question of MP's activities in isolation. If being an MP is a full-time job, how do some manage to combine being a Minister as well as an MP? That leads us to question whether constituency representatives and the Government executive should be separate, as exists in USA.
If being an MP is a full-time job, does it mean that Ministers have too much to do? Alternatively, if Ministers are able manage the dual task adequately, would that indicate MPs do have spare capacity? We know that Parliament sits for less than seven months a year. If that is the case, should MP's be able to fulfil their lives with other challenges, which allows 'outside-the-bubble' exposure: corporate or family business; NGO directorships; local government; hospital boards; media broadcasting; pension fund trustees; family law solicitors? Evidently, some do handle multiple challenges, and some do not. Could it be that some MP's are more efficient, or do they save time by simply following party voting instructions, with no more than a cursory glance at the legislation?
Many are calling for a comprehensive review of our 'democracy,' a system that was designed centuries ago, which evolved into its present form without the guidance of a written constitution. With MP's believing they are victims of circumstance, and the public believing it is fraud, perhaps the expenses scandal has shown that the present system, like an old car that's been fixed and patched so many times, has reached the end of its useful life.
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To the Blog Prince
Should not the recent comments (now lost) have appeared under the 'Latest Contributors' column? The almost inevitable presence of "Eddie Mair" and "Sequin" in that space is pointless.
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Vyle Hernia (32) I agree - ''Categories'' just doesn't work in the same way as Recent Comments....in fact it doesn't work at all at the moment!
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"Topical posts on this blog" lists the last threads that people have left comments on.
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Gillianian (33) I know what's wrong with the Categories section. All the links have a minus sign (-) as separators in the address, when they need underscores (_). Replace the - with a _ in the address bar, and the links will work :-)
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boysaboys (34) Thanks - I've just tested it out, and I see what you mean ;o)
Ffred - thanks - but that's just one faff too far! I'll make do with navigating through Topical Posts for now.
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good grief, ffred, well spotted - but is that a problem with the original addresses or with the new-look blog? I presume the latter since it used to work ok.
Like Gilianian though I hardly think I'll find the urge to look back so overwhelming that I'll want to edit the address every time - mind you, do we still have the links problem that means you have to edit out the unwanted html or whatever the stray characters were?
Getting to be something of a diy blog these days.
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I think that it is very obvious why the local authority dropped the case against the cheating mum. To go ahead they would be tacitly admitting that one of their schools is better then the others which goes against their aim of all their schools being equal.
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LordBeddGelert (4): I note the mistakes you identified have been removed from the offending article. How very 1984 of the BBC.
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"The Law, is an Ass.."
And, so it would seem.
In the US, for example, if nowhere else. I think the fellow concerned will make a good lawyer. But, who has he upset, I wonder..?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/business/02lawyer.html?em
Applicant has not made any substantial payments on the loans, the judges wrote in a terse decision and an unusual rejection of the committees recommendation. Applicant has not presently established the character and general fitness requisite for an attorney and counselor-at-law...
...New Yorks courts have overlooked misconduct like lawyers solicitation of minors for sex, efforts to deceive judges and possession of cocaine. Those instances have led merely to temporary suspensions from practice..."
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35. thanks FF for the spot. We've now fixed that.
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32 agreed. that for blogs with 1 or 2 contributors that doesnt make sense. but keeping for now. on http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs//nickrobinson/ for example its blanked out. we'll have a look.
as others have pointed out posts with recent comments are in the "topical posts" section.
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Karnuvap (38) The government might (vainly) wish that all schools could be ''equal'' - but its use of (meaningless) league tables will always ensure that particular schools are automatically perceived as the ''best'' and certain parents will always do whatever it takes to get their children into them.
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@boysaboys (29):
This is a perfect example of the two ways of looking at law, that I was discussing in yesterday's AM Blog:
You are trying to use the law to put the world back perfectly as if the wrong hadn't happened. I am trying to put in place a law that would be effective in preventing the wrong in the first place.
I would agree with your sentiments, if they were practical: In the real world, the councils (like Harrow) would avoid being seen to punish the child unfairly (anyone else intrigued by the resemblance to the Judgement of Solomon here?). They would fear that these pushy parents will parade the child in front of the media saying how their innocent little darling had been punished for their mistakes.
So, ultimately your solution will doubly punish the children who didn't get a place, as no child is excluded, and the behaviour is not stopped.
Yes, punishing the parents would not undo the wrong, but it would rapidly reduce the number of wrongs done.
Finally - anyone else think it is weird that parents can be jailed for child absenteeism - the parents being punished for the sins of the child, while here we have the reverse. And some people think that justice is arbitrary!!
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BTW, I omitted the obvious rebuttal of your argument:
If exclusion for misleading statements is such an effective and appropriate punishment, how come it has never yet been used?
@VH (30):
I agree with that. My feeling is that being excluded from a school and their friends for something they didn't actually do would be more disturbing than which school they attended.
I have met a surprising number of people who seem to believe, for no reason, that the authorities are out to get them. Would an act of apparent random persecution at a young age make such a persecution complex more likely? I guess that's one for the psychologists...
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Jiffle Hi again,
I think I understand the argument your putting forward...I think. Is it only the single subject of education that we should debate and apply perhaps different rational to the application of rules/law, or are all social rules/law up for individual debate. For instance, would an authority be justified in taking back a house if the applicant had lied on application to gain the property? Perhaps, someone lying an an application form for a mortgage. How would we deal with that. Both these cases could and would deprive others who have a right to them, and perhaps, a greater need. I'm just intrigued as to how far this can go. You see the person at the center of the Harrow case has said the dropping of the case by the council is an indication of her total and complete innocence. What say ye?
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Hi funnyJoe,
I see laws as often being a way of shaping the society we want, so yes, I guess yes - most or all laws could be up for individual debate.
It is clear from this that there at least two types of laws: First are those that are designed to change people's behaviour. So these are aimed at premeditated acts. A good example of this would be speed limits. They need people to be aware of the law, and know that they would break it, in order to work. (Hmmm, maybe speed limits not such a good example, after all!)
The second kind are related to punishment and resolution. These are aimed at dealing with the results of unintentional or reckless behaviour. I guess manslaughter would be a good example of that. They have at least two aspects: To punish the guilty party (or rather, to be seen by the victims and others to punish the guilty parties), and to make restitution to the victim(s).
Of course, for justice to be seen to be done, any punishment be given to those that actually committed the wrongdoing (in premeditated cases doubly so).
Clearly most of our statutes have aspects of both elements - many laws have elements of behavioural control and punishment and resolution. Hence, coming back to our previous discussion, the laws on animal cruelty have to deal with both cases of deliberate neglect and unintentional cruelty.
With respect to school places, the government is proposing a system that removes the impact of the crime, but the punishment (in terms of being humiliated and disrupted) falls on an innocent party.
In Harrow? I think it is a classic example of those that tell the truth most of the time get punished for a single lie, whereas those that lie and lie and lie again frequently get away with it. She bent the truth, using the time her mother had been at the house, but I can see an interpretation of time of residence that might lead her to put that number down, after all, family members had been resident at the house for that length of time, and if she had seen it as the family home in the past...
Her mistake as I see it (in terms of dealing with a process-driven bureaucracy like a council) was to admit that that number was incorrect. I imagine that very few councils have the resources to fact-check in detail, so unless someone stands up and openly admits they're put a wrong number on a form, there is little chance that they would be brought to book.
I think she should have just been given a slap on the wrist and the council should have moved its focus to those who are manipulating the system in a more premeditated way. But they probably don't have the resources to do that, unfortunately.
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Of course, if she didn't actually get divorced (the marital separation was the reason she gave for being at her mother's house) and is back with her partner, I would be much less inclined to believe her story.
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Jiffle,
Thanks you for your answer. However, the council in question have obviously decided that she had done wrong. This decision has not been changed Has it? However, to bring a successful prosecution under the fraud laws that they were proposing to do, I think (I'm no expert at all on these things) they would have had to prove quite a high level of premeditated intent. This is one of the reasons why it would be very difficult to bring charges against most MPs over their expenses according to parliamentary law. Charges would have to be brought under common fraud law applicable in the same way to any other citizen. Now the difference being for example, if you claim state benefits, you specifically sign a declaration of intent to tell the truth in all the information you give to claim a benefit. This covers any intention on the claimants part to premeditated fraud. You are also made aware of the consequences of intentional and unintentional fraud in this process. It is made clear what the responsibilities of the claimant are and the consequences of not taking these responsibilities. Perhaps this is why it is so much easier to prosecute this type of crime. Even though many see these laws as affecting the least able and poorest in society. On the other hand, MPs are signatories to not such declaration in claiming there expenses and as far as I know there is no legal parliamentary crime (MPs don't seem to commit crime whilst in parliament walls), only common crime which, would be very difficult to prove seeing that the body being allegedly defrauded dosen't recognise the crime or wrong doing under the common law. all very confusing.
Apart from all that, I agree when you say the vast majority of law is there to regulate behaviour. However, dosen't this open the door for governments to regulate behaviour to suit political agendas rather than a cohesive, just and successful society? I think its the fact of being caught and held responsible that keeps most people, most of the time, within the boundaries of the law. not a sense of moral or social duty. The bigger the consequence, the more likely is the keeping of that law. Then you have the fact that many people see certain behaviour as socially unacceptable and immoral but isn't a crime at all. Take recent banking and business practice. But this goes into a whole new area of what western democracy is/should be and has nothing to do with applicable law.
Finally, perhaps my biggest concern is this habit people have mainly aspiring to be middle class of picking and choosing what laws are good and what laws are there to be circumvented, ignored, seen and labeled as injustice. Take fox and animal hunting, tax laws, I even heard one of the panel on any questions say he would have no qualms about breaking the rules by lying to to get any of his children in a good school. However, when faced with the consequence of going to prison fro a long time for it...he had to think. Tell me what difference is this to the poor trying to make life a little more bearable by 'doing a bit on the side now and then'. Ain't they allowed to have aspirations too? Or should the law be the law in this case. If so, then why is law often seen as being not equally applied across society.
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fJd, I don't think being selective about which laws apply to oneself is a trait that's confined to any particular "class" of people (whatever the definition of "class" may be, something that I am always confused about because generally it seems to mean "them as is Not Like Me"); I think it is completely universal in every walk of life, age, race, religion, class and creed. It also applies to rules that don't have the force of law, in my observation: people are horrified when someone else does a thing they would do themselves but "that's different".
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I find the idea of legal punishment - as opposed to deterrence, prevention and recompense - difficult to understand rationally. Of course, the impulse to revenge arises in the aggrieved but - many impulses arise in us, not all necessarily worthy to be enacted.
And many times I have heard an outcry for harsher punishments from people who have had no personal involvement in any crime. We claim "the right" to see another person suffer. The trouble is; most criminals believe, with whatever justice, that they "have the right" in the first place, that they are themselves aggrieved. Socrates saying "no man does wrong willingly" is born out when we see the number of thieves who are poor, the number of abusers who are abuse-victims and so on.
It's easy to see how this happens; it is not alien. Because I know many people take the view, for example, that "muslims" as a whole may justly be made to pay for terrorist acts, that "young people today" may be accused of wholesale descent into ferality, that "the rich" are legitimate targets and so forth. That is to say, the ordinary person is not necessarily bothered who suffers so long as someone does.
And this must be seen to be done. That is; "I am angry and I want to see somebody suffer". But many of the most vicious crimes are committed in just this spirit. So what is criminal justice? Just somebody saying "we will decide, not you, how much human suffering you are entitled to enjoy - if we leave it to you you may go too far"?
Because if this is the case, surely we can prevent a lot of crime by just, in the first place, allowing our administrators to assess how much punishment each of us deserves both to enjoy and to suffer ourselves on a regular basis and then just matching them, so that everybody has the joy of watching others suffer and then suffers a little themselves for their cruelty while others watch and enjoy? While we are at it, we can make sure each one of us gets whatever goods and rewards one may be deemed entitled to.
Utopia!
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