Labour's "Big Conversation"


Well, that was interesting - put my tuppence in Labour's Big Conversation (Nice to see you are using PHP and not a Microsoft product for once Tony.)

vis a vis :

Local issue - Public drunkeness, noise and disorder.

National Issues :
1) The apparent increasing resembalance of UK policies to that of the private business-focussed US administration rather than the generally, Socialist, principles of the EU, which will only serve to increase the gap between rich and poor rather than narrow it.

2) More focus on vocational and continuing training rather than unrealistic and irrelevant targets on increasing particpation in academic higher education which does not suit many people, or employers.

3) Absolute necessity of generating a real diversity of industries within the UK economy and encouraging the development of new products and services which will make the UK more able to compete on a global scale.

Comment :
Would like to see more use of the Internet to solicit public opinion and provide voting facilities, provided that access is available to all.

Constitutional Reform - The House of Lords

Here's a good un - The House of Lords, discuss.

What would 'The Sensible Party' do with the second chamber?

My views is this - There is no place in a modern, fair and civilised society for positions of inherited privilege. So, no more monarchy and no more hereditary peers in my book.

Given the state of voting turnout in this country I see little value in an elected chamber though, so how would you select who gets to be a lord?

I tell you what would be a very interesting idea for a second chamber, and maybe this will be technically feasible soon.
Make it like jury duty - i.e. Joe Punter gets selected randomly and sites in the House of Lords for a month. That would be real democracy in action wouldn't it? Probably lead to untold expense claims though - so what else is new? : )

I suppose that opens a general topic - how to get people more invovled in democracy. Theoretically this should be easy, given the number of people who vote for Pop Idol and Big Brother for example...

Good points, I hear your concerns.
Thing is though, given most people's relatively meagre imaginations with passwords, I'd imagine compromising one
password / PIN from the average member of the public would open up access to all sorts of services, especially internet
ones. Most people have pretty lame, easy to guess passwords and tend to secure everything with the same one - the reason they choose one is precisely the reason that people would ultimately prefer one card to do it all - convenience. But, it's a truism that whatever is easiest and most convenient, often has many pitfalls. The story you tell is exactly the sort of thing that would make such a card unacceptable. Thing is, that story was nothing to do with the card, just the ineptitude of the bank. Let's face it, banks only put in ATMs to save them money, they never go out of their way to make it easier for you to get at your cash for your convenience.

I think it all depends on the security of the information on the card and the method of granting access.
i.e. PIN numbers for cards are generally 4 digits but people find it relatively easy to remember landline telephone numbers, so 7 digits should be ok. Given that and say, a 3 attempts and you're card is locked + 24x7 helpline number to sort out any problems like the one above, should make it relatively secure. Granted that'd be hard for older folk which would be a big problem. I think a PIN + some sort of biometric would be required - fingerprint, retina etc. That is a way off right enough, so maybe we will be arguing about the pros and cons for 10 years+ before this is remotely practical.

I think if government doesn't do this, some enterprising company will do it anyway as the increasing number of passwords etc will make it more attractive to people to get one access method for all these services.
Difficult to imagine who would be trusted to run it though.

yeah consolidation of your information onto an ID card sounds like a good thing.
I am all for increased efficiency and reduction in waste paper etc which may outweight any concerns I have.

My concerns are really concerns of the repercussions of abuse of this card.

who decides what info should go on the card,
what about credit rating etc?
what are the repercussions if your card and ID is stolen?

A bank card is fine, but if it is stolen it is just one bank account on it- what if an ID card held every account plus passwords to other things, other very sensitive data about you, your past,etc. It could grind your life to a halt until it was sorted out.
as an example :
a friend of mine- She was in marks, and she wanted to buy food for the weekend cos they had absolutelty nothing in the house.

She went to pay for it with her bank card.
It was refused, even though she knew she had plenty of money in the account.

After a long time of talking to the manager and the credit folk on the phone she left with no food.
So she went to the bank to find out what was happening- luckily there was a bank open on a saturday!!
The bank said , sorry we can see you have money in your account but we cant give you any money at all until monday becuase that is when we can contact the card company to get it sorted.

So the upshot of it was, she could not access HER money and could not buy food for the weekend.
She asked the bank
"so, are you telling me that I will not be able to buy any food? We are going to have to starve till monday? " and the bank said sorry but YES!


Now, how would this translate to an ID card. could these sort of problems exist with such a card?

If a card were to be issued it should be done over a long test time.

It should also not be compulsory to carry, nor should you be penalised for not having one.
Just like forcing OAPs to open bank accounts to get their pension, we should not be forced to have an ID card to life our life as we see fit.


Having said that, I'd consider one if my concerns were shown to be not an issue.

H

Smart, finally something I can disagree with Col on, if only slightly!

Firstly, I totally understand concerns about the project being outsourced to some company, messed up and costing too much.
That is inevitably going to happen and I'm not happy about that in the slightest.

And yes, the security on these cards would need to be impressive - Note to Tony, no Microsoft on this one eh Tone?

However, if they don't hold anything more than existing NI cards, licenses and birth certs then that's not much of a concern anyway as they
are only as secure as your back pocket and don't contain much that is of interest or which can't be easily found out by other dubious means.

However, I think you've answered your question on why these would be a good thing. Precisely because you could consolidate all those
cards and docs onto one card. Much more convenient and people like convenience. Can you imagine banking without a bank card these days?

Fact is, as it stands, people like Tesco etc probably have more data on you than the government does. The government don't know what
you've bought in your shopping and in which store you bought it in the last 3 years for example :)

Overall I am in favour of such things because of the potential benefits, particularly medically.
It would be great if in an accident someone could easily tell you were diabetic etc by a quick lookup. Though they could do that with a paper card with an ID number on it and a database.

I think the real benefits would not be available until the back end of the system was all sorted. NHS records out of paper and on to a database etc. All this is a long way off. The UK has been very backward on this sort of stuff and it's time we moved on from that position in my opinion.
It makes me cringe when I go into my GP and he pulls out that folder with all the notes in... I wonder how many buildings and clerks Tesco would need to store all their data in that fashion?

Identity cards
How can these be a good thing?
I just cant see how this will do anything.

I mean we already have passports, driving licences, birth certificates, NI cards, the list goes on...
Why would another ID card be any better?
If it is electronic then it can be copied/ forged...

Is there something I am missing?

Criminals dont care about ID cards etc, unless it is about selling them.

I certainly would not pay for them- we already are paying or them anyway-cos they'll be using our tax revenue.
Also, imagine the system designed- no doubt it'll be outsourced to some company.
They will churn the system out, it'll get hacked and we'll all need to get our ID's patched.
If your ID card isnt patched up to date then you cant get your benefits. You will be an INVALID!

so it goes on...

U.S. loses WTO steel appeal
Interesting stuff.

Yeah, Recyle, Reuse, Repair.
Thats what the sensible party should stand for!

The thing I was thinking about was this.
We import all this cheaper steel or cheaper coal etc etc; this maybe good for us in the end.
Thinking in a selfish way:
we are using other countries finite natural resources and leaving ours intact for future generations.
So is this a good thing I would think.

Plastics, I dont like them but they are definetly useful. Light and strong and you cant go wrong.


repairing broken things.
Turns out it my Nokia- cost 150 quid, made god knows where - a piece of junk- it is cheaper buying a new phone than to get this one fixed. I liek the wee phone, but this particular model was always duff... they just churn out crap like some software companies do... punt it; patch it after.

Which is why I bought a petrol hungry anti-environment lightweight landrover...
yeah it is cheaper buying a new car, but you cant fix anything on a new car. .except, perhaps, 'go faster stickers'
This laDy you can fix everything!.... basically because everything on it NEEDS fixed... hehe

there are no easy answers:
the sensible party should support
recylcling, reuse and repairing!

Well, the world for it, and it's a word I find myself repeating a lot these days, is - "unsustainable".

We can't go on throwing stuff out all the time and buying more stuff, ultimately we will have to make, either
more recyclable products or more component's products which can be enhanced / swapped out, replaced etc without throwing away the whole thing. A the risk of being an old fart, this is how things used to be - it was called, fixing things. Now things are so cheap, usually because they are made by poorly paid people on the other side of the world, that they are not even worth repairing. Sometimes it is even virtually impossible to replace parts.

My prediction - if we keep on like this - In 150 years, if humans are still around, mining rubbish will be a growth industry.
"Today BR (British reclaims PLC, formerly BP) announced they have struck a major landfill seam next to the site of the
former M74 motorway. The find promises a rich vein of plastics and semi-conductors"

Monbiot is particularly interesting, though some would say alarmist, on the sustainability issue :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,866785,00.html

From time to time I find myself wondering, if plastics were a no-no anymore, how would products we are used to in plastic be packaged? Consider the Gilette Gel Deodorant I use every day, quite apart from how the gel is made, it all comes in a plastic pack. Would it be in a cardboard tube? Maybe soft metal like toothpaste used to be like? I am now thinking how scary it is that my step-daughter has never even seen toothpaste in anything other than a plastic tube. How will it be to her generation when this is no longer on? Even a pack of ham is in plastic, it used to be placed on some greaseproof paper in a brown paper bag. Fact is, the second format will be much more convenient to our increasingly elderly population anyway :) Maybe the increasing numbers of old folk will mean out grumpy old (30 something) men politics will be more fashionable??

oh aye,
punt out: patch after (POPA)

Thats how the world operates now, cos of shoddy standards and cos they chuck money at any issue, never mind about quality just punt it out. Everything is disposable just because it is low quality and replacable. Once upon a time we produced quality products which took time to make, were not very cheap, but lasted a long time/lifetime. However cultures are just swamped by america; their great tide of debt induced low quality acceptance means that it is normal to have low quality products -afterall what do you expect for something costing you pennies.

I say the sensible party stands for supporting quality produced products which should mean less disposable products and means less consumption of natural resources!

We need to be sensible in our approach to consumption!

surprise surprise,
"Word on da street" is that We tax payers are paying nearly 3 times as much into the rail network after privitisation as we did before privitisation.
Did I mention that privitisation of our national assets was not appropriate for todays society.
it is a con, and should be stopped!
Selling off our countries resources is stupid stupid stupid!

Mind you a few companies have made a combined PROFIT of 1.1 BILLION.
well that's great for them isnt it...

Let's put up the pople responsible for this and charge them for fraudulent activities and neglect.

I say the sensible party should stand for investing in Society before servicing the leeches fat cats.

yeah,
education should be free, just like health care.
People should get free the basic daily food requirements also.

In a society where we have people with crazy amounts of money and the other end of the scale where people have nothing. This is proof that the capitalist culture we have has failed society as a whole. Big deal that it has made a few rich, but the fact that it has created more poor people across the world in all countries. People are not able to eat the daily minimum requirments, people are poor economically as well all healthwise and educationally. This is proof that the tory capitalist culture of the "market knows best " is not appropriate for todays society.
The tories and labour are to blame for this individualistic culture of 'its me against the world' screw folk and make money for yourself.
Invest in shares in privitised public assests- which by the way before privitisation WE WERE ALREADY SHAREHOLDERS as we owned them!
it is a con, and it plays on peoples greed. Greed is good so they say. However it is just a matter of time before someone else has greedily taken away YOUR money and worth.
Then what will you do.
I say that wealth is not about making a fat bottomline through exploitation of the weakend masses but to help everyone on the planet, this must surely benefit eveyone and everything.
Why are we still listening to idiots? Why do we never learn from mistakes in the past..... the reason is because new younger people come along and think they know better. They become the leaders and continue with the stupidity of short term exploitation of the weakend rather than the long term investment opportunities.

the sensible party should stand for sensible approach to capitalism and a balance between making money and preventing over-exploitation of any resources be it human or other natural entity.

over and out.

Hey, I was thinking on this tack - let's take one thing at a time -

It's clear we both agree that education should be free.

However, I don't think it should be completely free to everyone. Do you?

To me a element of finacing it should be paid by those with the means to do so.
I am unsure what the mechanism should be for that though. I would say :

o No student loans.
o Means tested grants to cover travel and basic cost of living (Accomodation, food, books and materials).
o Means tested fees - paid by those who can, free to those who's parents can't.
o More scholarships like in the US - tax incentives to companies who provide these.

To me, anything radical you'd like to do to make the system farirer involves more tax.
Hmm, how do you make more tax popular? I know, tax things that people agree are for the good -

o Introduce compulsory recycling - Every household gets lockable bins for recycling stuff and one for non-recyclable stuff.
o Tax on amount of non-recyclable rubbish left.
o Same for businesses, with heftier tax based on company profits.
o Tax on packaging based on ratio of weight to item packaged, with exceptions to cover delicate items (Light bulbs etc).

In fact, while we are on tax on company profits - if I was Brown, I'd hire the most skilled tax advisors and auditors and put them
to work in closing down all the dodgy loopholes that let big companies pay less tax.

Yes, I'm not sure if Howard being there increases or decreases their chances. I suppose their logic is that this will draw back the staunch tories who voted them in before and were put off talk of change. They don't get the fact that New Labour has stolen all the policies they had that were appealing to the elecorate (Present company, including me, excepted) and left them with nothing popular.
Basically the key tenents of the right wing are :
Right Wing Spiel - Reality

1) Markets are great and introducing a market where there isn't one will solve everything - Markets make the rich richer and lead to lots of hefty donations from rich people and companies who benefit from them. We've had a market driven capitalist ethic in the western 'civilised world' for some time - has the percentage of poverty gone down? I don't have any stats on this but I'd be surprised if progress in this area has been anything more than glacial.

2) The public sector can never do as good a job as the private sector - The NHS is the single largest organisation in Europe. Think of all the bull you've encountered at every private sector company you've worked at and imagine those clowns running such a huge enterprise, would they do a better job? Look at the jobs going abroad purely down to the bottom line - would that kind of thinking work with the NHS? It clearly hasn't with the railways. Basic infrastructure and public services should be paid for by tax payers and run by the government, anything else is just folly. Anyone reading this who disagrees, go point out an example of private sector run public services that works well. What right wing folk fail to understand, and are frankly incapable of understanding - their brains are not wired the right way - is that folk who work in the public sector are not motivated purely by money. The idea of doing a job for the good of your fellow man is incomprehensible to these numpties.

3) The most important person in the world is number 1 - Me, me, me, me, my money, my house, my car etc. Not much more to write about this than that. Pure, unadulterated selfishness and childlike attitude - perhaps stemming from the spoilt brat beginnings of many such people?

I agree on free education but how will we pay for it?
All this stuff requires money and I don't see how we can get that other than higher taxation of the highest earners, and since they are more likely to vote, it is unlikely we will achieve that. That's why I applaud Gordon Brown's stealth tax approach, he has been very successful in squeezing more money out without overtly appearing to do so. I hope he does something related to the house market next time. I'm sick of conversations about how much houses are worth. I mean, my flat is probably worth about 45%+ more than I paid for it, so what? Even with the profits I'd still be looking at paying more than 2 times what I paid for it to move up the scale into a detached house. And if I don't move, what does that increase do for me? Nothing except enable me to borrow money I can't afford to pay back or sell and liquidate my asset if things get bad - at which time it'll probably be worth less anyway!

It's clear to me the current set-up is unsustainable and the more people realise this the less chance someone like Howard has of being in control again. Keep going like we are and the only outcome is bankruptcy. It looks like people will only realise that once the USA goes bust, as it must surely do? The irony of the bastion of capiltalism leading it's downfall would be pretty sweet :)

Good old tory party squabbling.
Heading further towards the right.
So what do they want Howard to do... reintroduce privitisation of all our national assest, so we can create more fat cats who suck our resources and then we'll be just like the railway!
Or what about good old BT, remember how WE used to OWN it. Now they are sending loads of jobs abroad.
Here , while we are at De-skilling the UK, why dont we charge for education, oh yeah that's already done.
why isnt education free?
Surely education is a benefit for all society- I'm not talking about university degrees here. I am talking about all types of education.
I'd like to see a time where anyone is allowed to learn anything.
Come to think of it- that's what Libraries are for.
Cheap access to books of the world!

However reading books is only one side to learning.. having a teacher/tutor/mentor isanother important fact- and this is where we need to pay for their time... but surely there is a better way to pay for it than to put these students in mega-debt.
Look at how we all have so much debt we are basically working for these credit agencies... a form of employment with no strings attached, except work for us to pay of your debt or we will do you in.

So anyway, I dont think the tories are appropriate for today's UK. Their corporate values are why we are in this state now..
Surely a nation shoud retain ownership of some of its basic infrastructure and not sell it off!
I dont know about you, but dont you think that is wrong?

Why do they say private companies are the most efficient, all the companies I have worked in are not efficient, they only work to deadlines 'by any means necessary' how can this be good practice?
Why does efficient have to mean cash efficient.
Should our infrastructure not be EFFECTIVE and efficient, (with cash efficient being a further subset of this)?

I could go on, and I will afterwards.. but I need to go and "screw someone over to make a fast buck...." and a cuppa tea.