Cannot but comment on Panorama's 'Joint Enterprise' piece that highlighted the Police's enthusiastic use of a 300 year old law where a by-stander member of a group is as liable for a murder as the person carrying out the murder. Beyond the headline, it went on to imply that it might be necessary to prove that an individual was a member of a group and the group was known to that individual to be prone to violence, before the event.
It is self-evidently a nonsense law. A member of a group may very well be an accomplice to an event but that is a world apart from being treated as equally guilty to the actual persons that inflicted harm likely to cause death or injury. To stand by, watch and not intervene is a crime, yes, but not comparable and equal to actually crossing the line and actually inflicting injury. There is a huge difference between thoughts which may, or may not, encompass intent and the actual physical realisation. Who knows what might stay the hand of intent before its enactment? Who really knows what intent was in mind or whether there was some other innocent explanation for being with the only gang around?
It is deeply worrying that the Police have distanced themselves from the Society they are charged with policing. It used to be that they were of the society, were members of it and mixed freely within it.
That they can revert to an obsolete law, ignore the blatant injustice explicit within it and promote it as a way to successfully target street crime shows all too clearly the distance they have placed between themselves and the society they set out to control.
Have they lost all sight of the mechanics of deprived areas, have they no comprehension of youth culture or the absence of choice for those without means?
This willingness to use a manifestly unfair law that defies the common man's comprehension can only result in further alienation of all those not born middle-class, white and from a nice area.
Thursday 26 November 2009
Harry Brown
Reassured by the great British public, 66% thought it almost fantastic, we went to see Harry Brown. A very bleak film. Fine, bleak is good, some of the toughest social issues lurk in these dark corners.
Expectations running high, we lurch through one ludicrous implausible plot shift to another as one hackneyed cliché after another, after another is trotted out. There are occasional hints of originality with a fresh take but these, after the initial languid absorbing scene setting opening, never develop or find any legs. Instead it accelerates into cheap kicks with gratuitous drug taking, violence and violence against women. Whatever creative drive it started out with was quickly used up and there were no reserve Plan B's to call on. Even the final crescendo of violence cannot be left as a climatic end with three, in teach yourself detail, dead and two in doubt, but, has to whimper off into a limp-wristed apology of a soppy nonsensical soft landing.
Oh Micheal Caine, that you gave authority to and your great performance should have been wasted on such unmitigated dross.
Expectations running high, we lurch through one ludicrous implausible plot shift to another as one hackneyed cliché after another, after another is trotted out. There are occasional hints of originality with a fresh take but these, after the initial languid absorbing scene setting opening, never develop or find any legs. Instead it accelerates into cheap kicks with gratuitous drug taking, violence and violence against women. Whatever creative drive it started out with was quickly used up and there were no reserve Plan B's to call on. Even the final crescendo of violence cannot be left as a climatic end with three, in teach yourself detail, dead and two in doubt, but, has to whimper off into a limp-wristed apology of a soppy nonsensical soft landing.
Oh Micheal Caine, that you gave authority to and your great performance should have been wasted on such unmitigated dross.
Monday 23 November 2009
More Balls for BBC
Whilst I have it to mind. The justification of the BBC licence fee is simply that it is an exemplar for the entertainment, enlightenment and enrichment capable of delivery by the broadcast media.
Though it has to ensure it reaches its target audiences the BBC should be above populism and viewer ratings. The commercial stations are much better placed to satisfy the ratings war, meet focus groups thoughts and be capable of demonstrating wide viewer acceptance.
The BBC should be about creatively reaching out, showing and exploiting what the new media outlets and dissemination might be capable of.
Unfortunately its seems the BBC is currently obsessed with navel gazing, suckering up to its paymaster and kowtowing to approving committee's positions of least objection.
What they have to get back to, to survive, are strong creative minds able to withstand flack but charged with a zeal to achieve and spread their vision of the new world we have sauntered into. Above all be prepared to address adults in adult terms on adult subjects, without dumbing down or deference to minority positions.
Though it has to ensure it reaches its target audiences the BBC should be above populism and viewer ratings. The commercial stations are much better placed to satisfy the ratings war, meet focus groups thoughts and be capable of demonstrating wide viewer acceptance.
The BBC should be about creatively reaching out, showing and exploiting what the new media outlets and dissemination might be capable of.
Unfortunately its seems the BBC is currently obsessed with navel gazing, suckering up to its paymaster and kowtowing to approving committee's positions of least objection.
What they have to get back to, to survive, are strong creative minds able to withstand flack but charged with a zeal to achieve and spread their vision of the new world we have sauntered into. Above all be prepared to address adults in adult terms on adult subjects, without dumbing down or deference to minority positions.
Tuesday 17 November 2009
Strictly BBC
We are told repeatedly in Strictly Come Dancing that the public vote counts but we never get to hear a single word of how many votes are cast or for whom. Is it by just one vote or ten thousand? We are never told.
It is clear that telephone polls are very big revenue earners and make significant contributions to production costs. This year having reduced the telephone poll period from 24 hours to just some 20 minutes, what difference has this made in the number of telephone votes logged? We don't know. We don't know whether just a small handful of voters decide the outcome or whether the whole nation is hooked and votes or just hangs there unable to get through in the small window of time. We don't know whether just a few celebrities get all the votes or whether the votes are well spread, whether a celebrities popularity changes over the weeks or there is a hardcore of supporters. We are told nothing, not the the total of valid votes, not the percentage spread, nothing, except keep making your calls cause they really are important!
Now of course it would be hideously embarrassing to be the only celebrity that never got a single vote, but they have agreed to enter a 'competition' and that's what happens in competitions, one comes first and one ends up last.
This is the crux of it, it presented as a competition, it is repeatedly presented as a competition where the viewers telephone votes count and makes a difference. It breaks viewers trust not to offer any feedback at any level and to not give credence to the message that your vote really makes a difference.
In the feedback vacuum, cynicism will flourish that it is only about revenue generation, that it is all pre-orchestrated by the production team and that the judges work to pre-planned scripts will fester and grow.
BBC, be worthy of your viewers trust.
It is clear that telephone polls are very big revenue earners and make significant contributions to production costs. This year having reduced the telephone poll period from 24 hours to just some 20 minutes, what difference has this made in the number of telephone votes logged? We don't know. We don't know whether just a small handful of voters decide the outcome or whether the whole nation is hooked and votes or just hangs there unable to get through in the small window of time. We don't know whether just a few celebrities get all the votes or whether the votes are well spread, whether a celebrities popularity changes over the weeks or there is a hardcore of supporters. We are told nothing, not the the total of valid votes, not the percentage spread, nothing, except keep making your calls cause they really are important!
Now of course it would be hideously embarrassing to be the only celebrity that never got a single vote, but they have agreed to enter a 'competition' and that's what happens in competitions, one comes first and one ends up last.
This is the crux of it, it presented as a competition, it is repeatedly presented as a competition where the viewers telephone votes count and makes a difference. It breaks viewers trust not to offer any feedback at any level and to not give credence to the message that your vote really makes a difference.
In the feedback vacuum, cynicism will flourish that it is only about revenue generation, that it is all pre-orchestrated by the production team and that the judges work to pre-planned scripts will fester and grow.
BBC, be worthy of your viewers trust.
Wednesday 11 November 2009
Tax, salaries and rewards
Money, we all need it, some more than most. So whilst we are talking about £45M winners its time to think and draw four strands together.
Thread 1
Success has to be rewarded and we all need aspirational dreams, dreams that can take us out of the drudgery of every day life and gives us the hope of escape. At what point does a salary or bonus become unacceptable, £1M or £2M or £5M what about £10M how about £50M pa, so excessive as to be condemned by everyone as too ludicrous to contemplate?
We want rewards, we need to dream but where to draw a line, a line which supports a cohesive society and where those without are tolerant of those with an excess. No one wants a polarised society, even the most rich need those without to provide for and give support to their beyond dreams lifestyles and those without have to have the hope that they too can get rich or else they will abandon hope and just take what they don't have.
So, how many second homes, how many luxury yachts, how many private planes, how many private islands, how many years without toil are necessary to justify, adequate reward? When one man (eg Bill Gates) has greater wealth and freedom to dispose of it without scrutiny than a Nation State then we are in a very sick place.
Setting aside the historical origins that gave rise to inherited wealth, another subject for discussion later, reward used to be related to value. Those that worked extra hard, those who took risk, those that had exceptional skills, they were rewarded proportionately. Nowadays a footballer or a 'celebrity' with media ranking can claim silly monies whilst the A&E nurse, the scientist with ten years research, the craftsman with a life long skill, the soldier, the Brain Surgeon are paid, in relative terms piffling amounts. No fair rewards here. Our core values have been turned topsy-turvy by international financial backgammon, betting on south-sea bubbles of huge proportions. How do we get a reality check?
Thread 2
The theory goes that in a free market, supply and demand will level out salaries, so the most numerous tasks with large numbers of people able to carry them out will be paid least and the tasks where there are few specialists persons able to carry them out will become the best paid. So why aren't we inundated with would be footballers, stock market traders and TV presenters and why are science teachers in such short supply? It is not, probably never has been, a free market. For many good reasons, pay restraints and thresholds or freezes, union or public service comparability, market norms and a host of other well intentioned interventions have removed the self-correcting mechanisms that were supposed to work. We ineptly fix salary levels bolstered by claims of fair pay. Plus 'funny money' generated by share values or media ratings have totally distorted beyond any rationale, the right price for the job. We need a re-think.
Thread 3The stroke of genius was PAYE! The huge working underbelly of society was locked into a system that scrupulously, ruthlessly and efficiently took money at source and paid it to the state. There was no escape, if you were salaried, as most were. A large income without effort was guaranteed to the State, leaving it time to go the merry-go-round with those not on PAYE stopping off one tax avoidance bolt hole before stopping off the next in an never-ending cycle. Those with payed little tax, those without paid in full.
Times are changing, those in employment, those receiving regular full salaries are ever diminishing proportions of society. Employed work as a main source of State tax revenue has to be re-thought. Even VAT, the tax on already taxed income, is due a re-think when goods can be sourced with ease from around the world. National boundaries are fast becoming meaningless.
Thread 4
We must stop apologising for having lost our Empire, for having been brought to our knees by USofA, for having been a colonising nation for once having been a world player.
We are a great tolerant and inclusive nation, densely populated from richly diverse origins and offering a wealth of talent and commercial opportunities. Those that want to live amongst us are most welcomed but must pay their way, those that invest with us are will be shielded from payment proportionate to the degree and length of their investment and those that want to just sell into our market are welcomed but will have to negotiate an access to our market relative to the profits taken out of it.
We must learn to have confidence in ourselves as a Nation and to capitalise on the benefits of being such a great trading opportunity for the world. The free-booters can live elsewhere, we can manage just fine without them. Those that do have a rare ability or bring special honed skills or expertise and generate income or investment in the Nations future shall be rewarded proportionately above their fellows at the expense of those that generate large incomes for a narrow sector of society by using few skills or investment in our future.
Thread 1
Success has to be rewarded and we all need aspirational dreams, dreams that can take us out of the drudgery of every day life and gives us the hope of escape. At what point does a salary or bonus become unacceptable, £1M or £2M or £5M what about £10M how about £50M pa, so excessive as to be condemned by everyone as too ludicrous to contemplate?
We want rewards, we need to dream but where to draw a line, a line which supports a cohesive society and where those without are tolerant of those with an excess. No one wants a polarised society, even the most rich need those without to provide for and give support to their beyond dreams lifestyles and those without have to have the hope that they too can get rich or else they will abandon hope and just take what they don't have.
So, how many second homes, how many luxury yachts, how many private planes, how many private islands, how many years without toil are necessary to justify, adequate reward? When one man (eg Bill Gates) has greater wealth and freedom to dispose of it without scrutiny than a Nation State then we are in a very sick place.
Setting aside the historical origins that gave rise to inherited wealth, another subject for discussion later, reward used to be related to value. Those that worked extra hard, those who took risk, those that had exceptional skills, they were rewarded proportionately. Nowadays a footballer or a 'celebrity' with media ranking can claim silly monies whilst the A&E nurse, the scientist with ten years research, the craftsman with a life long skill, the soldier, the Brain Surgeon are paid, in relative terms piffling amounts. No fair rewards here. Our core values have been turned topsy-turvy by international financial backgammon, betting on south-sea bubbles of huge proportions. How do we get a reality check?
Thread 2
The theory goes that in a free market, supply and demand will level out salaries, so the most numerous tasks with large numbers of people able to carry them out will be paid least and the tasks where there are few specialists persons able to carry them out will become the best paid. So why aren't we inundated with would be footballers, stock market traders and TV presenters and why are science teachers in such short supply? It is not, probably never has been, a free market. For many good reasons, pay restraints and thresholds or freezes, union or public service comparability, market norms and a host of other well intentioned interventions have removed the self-correcting mechanisms that were supposed to work. We ineptly fix salary levels bolstered by claims of fair pay. Plus 'funny money' generated by share values or media ratings have totally distorted beyond any rationale, the right price for the job. We need a re-think.
Thread 3The stroke of genius was PAYE! The huge working underbelly of society was locked into a system that scrupulously, ruthlessly and efficiently took money at source and paid it to the state. There was no escape, if you were salaried, as most were. A large income without effort was guaranteed to the State, leaving it time to go the merry-go-round with those not on PAYE stopping off one tax avoidance bolt hole before stopping off the next in an never-ending cycle. Those with payed little tax, those without paid in full.
Times are changing, those in employment, those receiving regular full salaries are ever diminishing proportions of society. Employed work as a main source of State tax revenue has to be re-thought. Even VAT, the tax on already taxed income, is due a re-think when goods can be sourced with ease from around the world. National boundaries are fast becoming meaningless.
Thread 4
We must stop apologising for having lost our Empire, for having been brought to our knees by USofA, for having been a colonising nation for once having been a world player.
We are a great tolerant and inclusive nation, densely populated from richly diverse origins and offering a wealth of talent and commercial opportunities. Those that want to live amongst us are most welcomed but must pay their way, those that invest with us are will be shielded from payment proportionate to the degree and length of their investment and those that want to just sell into our market are welcomed but will have to negotiate an access to our market relative to the profits taken out of it.
We must learn to have confidence in ourselves as a Nation and to capitalise on the benefits of being such a great trading opportunity for the world. The free-booters can live elsewhere, we can manage just fine without them. Those that do have a rare ability or bring special honed skills or expertise and generate income or investment in the Nations future shall be rewarded proportionately above their fellows at the expense of those that generate large incomes for a narrow sector of society by using few skills or investment in our future.
Friday 6 November 2009
Power v State
Revolt or Evolve. Got to thinking about decision-making and power and how those with power use it to retain it and defend off all else that threaten it.
The basic proposition in a free society is that we forego our individual freedoms to some large degree as long as me me and my networked me by and large get a fair deal and benefit, even to the point where I will give up my personal advancement or even my life.
Alternate is, if the deal is renegade on then I will fully exercise my free will irrespective of any collective good, anarchy.
There does seem now to be a dangerous third way, we just withdraw inwards, enjoy what we have got and blank out all events around us, until or unless our future hopes are threatened. Those with the control then are totally unrestrained.
The opposite to a free society is a subjugated people where they are instructed in what when and how to react and where punishment is meted out, without the need for justification, for any deemed infringements.
Our reality is that we do live in a subjugated society but one that it is shrouded in a mist of allusions to freedom, until of course a freedom is dared to be claimed. Over time this grey fog shifts from very free to very constrained, currently we are rushing towards a very constrained and subjugated society where voices for freedom and liberties are shouted down.
So we have to ask, the peoples voice, does it really matter or make any difference?
The basic proposition in a free society is that we forego our individual freedoms to some large degree as long as me me and my networked me by and large get a fair deal and benefit, even to the point where I will give up my personal advancement or even my life.
Alternate is, if the deal is renegade on then I will fully exercise my free will irrespective of any collective good, anarchy.
There does seem now to be a dangerous third way, we just withdraw inwards, enjoy what we have got and blank out all events around us, until or unless our future hopes are threatened. Those with the control then are totally unrestrained.
The opposite to a free society is a subjugated people where they are instructed in what when and how to react and where punishment is meted out, without the need for justification, for any deemed infringements.
Our reality is that we do live in a subjugated society but one that it is shrouded in a mist of allusions to freedom, until of course a freedom is dared to be claimed. Over time this grey fog shifts from very free to very constrained, currently we are rushing towards a very constrained and subjugated society where voices for freedom and liberties are shouted down.
So we have to ask, the peoples voice, does it really matter or make any difference?
Thursday 5 November 2009
short sighted government
With some pride at their achievement the government announces that bankers bonuses for 'our' Banks are to be banned for the next three years. Big deal.
Any bet our self-seeking bankers will defer making any profits for the next three years and then wham, back on the gravy train.
So short, short sighted.
No bonuses until the bankers have repaid all the state's 'get out of jail' money, except for an interim bonus, when half the money is returned to the State, based on the interest saved. Final bonus based on saved interest assuming a 15 year payback timescale but deferred depending on a further three years of profit.
Any bet our self-seeking bankers will defer making any profits for the next three years and then wham, back on the gravy train.
So short, short sighted.
No bonuses until the bankers have repaid all the state's 'get out of jail' money, except for an interim bonus, when half the money is returned to the State, based on the interest saved. Final bonus based on saved interest assuming a 15 year payback timescale but deferred depending on a further three years of profit.
Mission statement
Wide ranging ramblings covering food, the political state and planning. Focused on the south-west of England, but not exclusively, with a remit to rant on anything that gets me going.
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