Richard Lack's Blog

EU Constitution

Below is my response to a blog on www.reengage.org about the necessity for a referendum on the EU Constitution, and www.yourparty.org's views on the matter:

Seb,

You make some very valid comments. It's certainly true to say that polls can be misleading, and for as long as there have been polling companies there have been political parties that pick and choose those which they percieve to support them in their aims due to the demographic they are composed of.

YourParty have long been aware that there is a crucial difference between a poll and a vote. Polls tend not to be taken as seriously as votes and have a lower burden of accountability. They are useful for putting together a quick snapshot of opinion but they cannot be relied upon for policy forming for a variety of reason. They'll have their place on the www.yourparty.org site but will have nothing to do with formal voting.

YourParty.org will rely on a carefully audited voting system for all areas of policy formation and will make sure that all votes happen in the light of an informed and impartial debate about the issues at stake. It's the nature of voting that many people will come to the argument with pre-conceieved idea formed through the media and what they might have heard down the pub for instance. It's our aim to fill in the gaps in understanding and make sure that members are well informed when they eventually come to take a formal vote on this or any other issue.

What I'm trying to underline here is that YourParty.org won't be letting it's members make up policy through a series of 'quick polls' If you go to the site today you'll see that there's no option to take polls at all for this very reason. The majority of work our technical team is doing right now is in designing deliberative policy formation tools to make sure all future votes are properly framed. This takes time and effort but we're determined to get it right rather than fudging it with polls.

I take your point about an internet group manipulating and taking advantage of our polls, and also your mention of our members being 'relatively affluent technologically literate'. A few points worth noting here:

1: In order to vote we require a valid photo ID. More than is required for postal votes.
2: The internet is now being used by well over half of UK citizens. Perhaps more than turned out to vote at the last general election.
3: It's not true to say that they are mainly young or affluent any longer. 'Silver surfers' number in the millions and many of them are members of the party. Anecdotally - the first press interview Dan Thompson gave on launch day after the Today programme was for an over 50's site (http://www.50connect.co.uk/)
4: The web works for us right now because the costs associated are relatively low. As we grow in size we fully intend to support other methods of participation such as phone, post and local meetings.
5: You could argue that the turnout for the last general election was not refelective of the UK as a whole. It being disproportionately older people who had time on their hands to go out and vote, and with less than representative turnout among ethinic minorities.

Finally - I've done some research on the Eurobarmoter poll and have to admit I can't find the full results. I'd be interested to see how many voted for the constitution if 51% voted yes and presumably a fair percentage said 'dunno'

In any case - we haven't yet polled our members on the EU constitution or started the process of voting and policy formation. Until then I don't have confidence in any polling organisation particularly except for general illustration of the need for a referendum in the first instance.

Things to cross off the list

It occured to me today that there are 2 things that I really ought to have done when I had a chance.



1: Lunch at the top of the World Trade Centre

2: Take Concorde to NYC



Proof positive that sometimes you should just blow the expense and do it anyway. It doesn't look like there's much prospect of anything along the lines of concorde going into production for a very long time. The avionics industry is going backwards for the first time ever.



It's sad to see the end of the irrationally exuberant and optimistic era of our history when we'd build passenger planes that flew at twice the speed of sound, buildings that reached the clouds and lunar craft that touched down on the dark side of the moon. When did we stop striving?

Clamping

I had a brainwave as I left the car for 5 mins at Tunbridge Wells station this morning, not knowing if the clamping van would get to it before I could grab a pint of milk.



It works like this:



The reason that private companies and individuals are able to clamp you, charge you for release, tow your car away and potentially even sell it is because they displayed a prominent notice in the vicinity of the area where you parked. This notice tells you that by parking there you consent to paying a fine and having your vehicle clamped. It's perfectly legal for them to do this and your don't have a leg to stand on in the majority of cases because you've given your implied consent to be being clamped. Under civil law you are subject to the terms of the agreement.



In similar fashion, I've just put a notice on both my cars worded:



"Any person clamping, removing or issuing a penalty ticket on this vehicle consents to being charged by the owner the sum of £100 or an amount equal to all penalty fees, whichever is the greater amount. You also consent to having any clamping equipment forcibly removed and impounded until a release fee of £70 is paid. Storage will be charged at £15 daily."



Anyone care to suggest how that would stand up to closer legal scutiny? I'm off to buy some bolt cutters!!

Weasel Words

I came across an interesting quote this morning:



" ...'social' is a weasel word that has acquired the power to empty the nouns it qualifies of their meanings"



F.A Hayek 'Our Poisoned Language, The Fatal Conceit



...and it's true, put social in front of any verb and it becomes meaningless:



Social Justice

Social Equality

Social Housing

Social Worker

www.Britainineurope.org.uk - A rebuttal

The following post does not represent the views of www.yourparty.org:

What's the case for Briain joining the Euro? ...and my very pointed response to www.britainineurope.org.uk





Let me answer the points this site makes one at a time:



1: Britain Can't afford to go it alone. Half of our exports are to Europe.



Rubbish. We can still stay in Europe and not adopt the euro - This line that's trotted out by europhiles suggesting that a rejection of single currency is a rejection of Europe period is a falsehood. The nature of imports and exports is that it's a two way street. They NEED us more than we need them. If the argument is about free trade then we should renegotiate our terms of entry to get rid of the hugely expensive CAP along with the host of other unfair and uncompetitive taxes, tarrifs and directives which are increasing the cost of employment, keeping French and German farmers' pockets lined and destututing third world economies when we dump our subsidised produce on the market.. Norway and Switzerland have the highest GDP per capita in the world ($39,000) and they are not single market members. They get all the benefits that we enjoy and none of the baggage through membership of EFTA, the WTO and many other free trade agreements. The European Union was supposed to be about free trade - so far it hasn't come up with the goods and instead has been about political union. Put simply - you don't have to be part of Federal Europe just to trade with it. Inside Europe we are not even allowed to negotiate outside trade agreements on our own behalf. The EC does it for us!



2: The quotes from Thatcher are hopelessly out of context and not refelective of her feelings toward Europe. She wants out immediately and renegotiation to follow. Read 'Statecraft' for the fuller picture and a scathing indictment of the European project..



3: In response to the quote: “I can only confirm that the EU is not a ‘super-state’. Neither shall the EU become a ‘super-state’.” By Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark, 5 October 2000



I give you this:



Hans Teitmeyer - President of the Bundesbank: "The European Currency will lead to member nations transferring their soveriegnty"



Wim Duisenberg - President of the European Central Bank - The process of monetary union goes hand in hand with political, integration, and ultimately political union



Romano Prodi - President of the EC "The Euro was a decision that completely changed the nature of the nation states. The pillars of the nation state are the sword and currency and we changed that....the real goal is to draw on the single currency and create a political Europe. A common European Army is the next logical step.



I've got pages of quotes just like these. Anyone want me to go on?



4: I won't even justify the wild assertion that 3.5mm jobs are at stake if we don't accept the euro. This figure is plucked out of nowhere. Do you seriously think that a UK firm that currently does it's business in sterling with a french firm will be sent out of business just because we continue with the status-quo? Trading in a different currency never seemed to hurt our very healthy balance of trade between US/UK, UK/Mexico UK/Japan etc etc.



5: Being out of the Euro makes our currency volatile!

Does it really now? Why is then that the major cause of volatilty in the last 15 years was when we got involved in the Exchange rate mechanism (ERM) - limiting our ability to be able to control our currency and sending the pound into a flat spin becuase the Germans had completely different economic circumstances and huge public bills to pay following reunification. We lost the struggle with the Bundesbank on that occasion and we'll lose control again to the ECB if we join the Euro.



6: Interest rates are lower in Europe...

Yes but unemployment runs at 11.5%!!!!! Low Interest rates are great for mortgage payers but they are very unnatractive for investors. ...and yes - that includes foreign companies looking to invest in Britain. In fact interest rates are so low in Germany right now that they risk deflation. Is that a risk we are prepared to take when we hand over all monetary control to the ECB?





7: ....and best of all: Our European partners are even more imprtant since September 11.



Name me just ONE issue that the UK agreed with our EU 'partners' on since 9/11. They showed us that they have no interest in working alongside us or the US and would do their utmost to obfusticate and deride all joint UK/US initiatives. Blair ,has now been forced to go cap-in-hand to Chirac to build bridges.



I could go on - ......I guess mine'll be a "No" vote then

Senseless Marketing Speak

Ever visit a website and completely fail to understand what the company actually does? Or perhaps looked at someone's profile and thought "Hmmmm creative e-enablement strategies and new paradigm digital collaborative solutions provider. Gee - I don't know what one of those is but I feel certain it's just what I need right now."



Believe it or not I came a cross an Ecademist profile today for a life coach that described himself as a "Situational Leadership Guru". Not only is that patently a load of crap, but doesn't it strike you as just ever so slightly immodest. Do you think his wife knows he's a Guru?



When did we dissapear so far up our own 'faecal supply chain repositories' that we forgot to tell potential customers, or the just plain inquisitive what it is we actually do all day? I spend so much of my working life picking apart vacuous marketing speak that I have little time left to do anything else.



I think there's a valid business model here for an anti-marketing consultancy (if that's not more jargon) for corporates who've had their web presence and marketing literature completely loused up by creative copyrighter types. I could charge billions to put together the next generation of blue chip sites that cut to the chase and actually informed clients.



e.g. a website for a lifecoach would be thus:



Who am I?

A really nice guy .....at home in my underpants who once spent a year in Goa smoking dope



What do I do?

I charge you to talk to me.



What are the benefits?

You're supposed to become enlightened...or something



How does it work?

It's a lot like seeing a shrink - but without the stigma or any of the qualifications.

Council tax rises: An open letter

I'm totally hacked off at the extortionate rise in council taxes when all I see in goverment is waste and bureaucracy. For any of you that share my concern here's a letter to my local paper, in response to our councillors assertion that pensioners should be exempt from the rise:





Letters

The Kent and Sussex Courier

Longfield Road

Tunbridge Wells

TN2 3HL



Sir,



Messrs Worrall and Bruce-Lockhart miss the point entirely in defending the borough council’s 134,000 pensioners against a council tax increase running at 4 ½ times UK inflation.



I am saddened at the thought of our elderly stumping up this ridiculous sum. Nevertheless, it’s no more true to say that pensioners are all impoverished than it is to say that twenty-somethings are all rolling in it. To make such assumptions smacks in the extreme of discrimination. Our borough has more than its fair share of wealthy pensioners who sit on a seven figure store of value thanks to another kind of inflation - in house prices. While there are undoubtedly many old folk doing their best to stretch a meagre state pension, there are others who benefit from generous final salary schemes. What then of the young doctor who bears the burden of an onerous student loan, or the 20 year old legal secretary who took a pay cut this year and who annually parts with £2,500 for a season ticket not worth twopence? What will you allow for those of us with young families, or we newly-weds who must scrimp and save and eat baked beans for a house deposit? The twin evils Hardship and Poverty visit us throughout our lifetimes.



Yes pensioners should be safeguarded from the effects of profligate government spending, and so must the rest of us. Messrs Worrall and Bruce Lockhart often and all too easily pass the buck, crowing loudly about central government’s misappropriation of funds to other regions. But it is plain to see that huge economies can and must be made in local government. On presenting hard working people with a rise 4.5 times that of inflation we would like clarification that you have explored every available cost saving measure, including, but not limited to:



· Downsizing the considerable army of council staff and officials

· Stopping ploughing millions into perfectly serviceable parks

· Resisting the urge to spend another £100,000,000 on speed bumps, bus lanes or cycle paths



It is clear that our borough is at crisis point and cannot afford these things. So Messrs Worrall and Bruce-Lockhart, you’ll just have to be patient like the rest of us! Come to think of it - you might have to wait for your council tax this year. You see we’ve had the funds misappropriated towards resources elsewhere.



Yours faithfully,



Richard Lack

If it please your Honour...?

Today is a celebration of that dissapearing species, a man described in most of the papers this morning as a 'British Boffin'



I've been part of the campaign for 6 years to get Tim Berners-Lee knighted. He's an extraordinary man; who besides inventing the web and making this blog possible, has been odd among the digerati in never seeking to profit from his invention. Tim didn't file patents, incorporate start-ups or license the technology of http and html to the NASDAQ luminaries. Were it not for Tim's philanthropic vision of shared learning the world would be a very different place. It's a tribute to him that he never climbed inside the bubble which would burst so spectacularly 8 years later.



A knighthood for a man such as this, or Martin Evans, the brilliant stem cell pioneer - means so much more to me than the myriad honours doled out to the assorted showbiz has-beens for Services to Entertainment (...and Never Getting Caught Doing Coke in the Service of Panto).



Though I think it's fantastic that the Rugger team got a boot in on the honours...and still no rumours of spit roasting; I can't help feeling it premature, impatient even. They are somehow less formidable on the pitch for all their medals. I imagine Jason Robertson breaking into a fast pelt down the wing and legions of Aussie backs genuflecting and declaring sarcastically: "After you Mi' Lord"



The honours used to inspire us by lifting up the people the Establishment wanted us to become. Lately the emphasis has changed such that it's a way for Tony to show our Monarch that we'll choose our own heroes. Lollipop ladies and Milkmen. People that are demonstrably straight kind of guys. I think this often misses the point of the excercise and does a disservice to those that have bothered to go out and acheive real and inspirational greatness.

Congestion Charging: Open letter to Capita and TfL

I'm sick and tired of getting Congestion charging fines because I forget to pay. There's no reason why this should happen using a bit of technology and some commonsense. Here's my letter to the powers that be. If you feel the same way then write in too:



Mr Richard Lack

XXXXXXXXXX Road

Tunbridge Wells

TN1 XXX



cc: Paul Pindar, Chief Executive, Capita

Peter Hendy, Director of Surface Transport, TfL



2nd January 2004



AUTOMATED PAYMENTS FROM DEBIT CARDS



Dear Sir/Madam,



I have canvassed support from very many people who regularly use the congestion zone. Our experience would be immeasurably easier if we had the option for our debit cards to be charged automatically whenever entering the zone. I understand that Capita currently offer the facility to buy a monthly ticket and then to claim a refund at the end of this period. Unfortunately, for those of us who are aware of it, this method is time consuming and expensive.



Many of us have paid out over £500 in fines since charging began. We accept that this is due to the fact that we occasionally forget to pay; but Capita should concede that it is precisely the absence of a method for automatic payment that results in normal people like ourselves being penalised unfairly and needlessly.



Given the technology currently being employed for payment by a variety of methods we are certain that a small change to the system will accommodate motorists who forget to pay by crosschecking a list of drivers who have previously authorised automatic payments against your daily list of outstanding unpaid vehicle registrations.



On a more cynical note I am prepared to contemplate that it serves Capita very well indeed if they fail to act on this straightforward matter. The revenues generated in fines are considerable, and largely dependent on drivers like us forgetting to pay.



We are all mindful that congestion charging is a public service and should be operated as such. It is not in the public service to be collecting fines where you could otherwise be collecting the lesser amount of the congestion charge by prior consent of the motorist.



The cause of the motorist has become a popular one with most of the national papers in recent years. Witness for instance the climb-down on ‘safety’ cameras and speed humps. We believe that most of the revenue which Capita receives is from fines and that the vast majority of those fines are from plain forgetful drivers. A workable suggestion has now been made for you to provide us with a better service. Unless you are able to offer an adequate justification for failing to rectify the situation within 14 days I will campaign in the national press for our proposal to be put into place; with all of the research into contractual agreements and adverse publicity and that this may confer.





Yours sincerely







Richard Lack

Beat the school run

As I drove my personal pollution solution to work today I became frustrated by the well-to-do kids being panzered 400 yards to prep school by Mummy. If I leave the house after 7:45am it's almost impossible to get across Tunbridge Wells in less than half an hour.



Confronted by the grille of yet another X5 skewed across a junction in my path, an idea hit me. It did so with such force that I swear I heard the "swooook doing!" of an arrow embedding itself in my bonce.



Why don't we equip all mothers with kids of school-going age with a medieval trebuchet? You know - the catapault contraptions that besieging armies used to hurl rotting mutton carcasses into castles.



At 8am every morning we'd all carefully seat Isobelle and Lawrence askance the taught sling arm and give the wooden lever a solid tug. For 20 seconds the skies over Tunbridge Wells would rain with pigtails, lunchboxes and mittens; then voila! As the whistle blew in the playground our little treasures would hopefully land somewhere in the environs of the tennis courts, paw themselves for broken limbs, and limp along to lessons.