CCTV cameras don't cut crime

4022

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It's official! CCTV cameras do not cut crime. Except possibly theft from cars left in car parks. I said as much in my book The Rotten State of Britain, published a year ago (watch out for the paperback, coming soon).

But now a major (and expensive) study by the Metropolitan Police has come to the same conclusion. There are about a million CCTV cameras in London, and – industry experts estimate – about 3.8 million in the country as a whole. But only one crime is solved for every 1,000 CCTV cameras. The Met figures show that each case helped by the use of CCTV costs about £20,000 to solve.

The rapid spread of CCTV cameras has gone hand in hand with a massive increase in crime, particularly violent crime. People demand CCTV because it makes them feel safer. Unfortunately it doesn't actually make them safer. All it does is subject them to snooping and abuse. Local councils had to be told to cut back their snooping on people they suspected of leaving their wheelie-bin lids open, or letting their dogs foul the pavement. Other officials have used cameras to ogle female airport passengers. Given the number of people with access to CCTV images, it can't be long before we find people being blackmailed over them, as has happened in the US. Maybe it's already happened here too.

While CCTV images may give officials a thrill, the Met study confirms that they are utterly useless in prosecuting cases. Often, the images are not clear enough to make an identification that would stand up beyond reasonable doubt. More often still, the images are not securely stored – so the courts throw them out, on the grounds that they might have been tampered with.

So why do we have CCTV at all? I suspect it's mostly officials covering their backs. If crime occurs and they have done nothing, they will get criticized. If they put up CCTV, at least they can say they made an effort, even though it didn't work out, as it (almost) never does. And for that, we are compromising our privacy and passing more potential power on to the authorities. Not worth it, I would say – if we ever got so much as a national debate on the subject, which of course we won't.

Not-so-amazing ingratitude

4025

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Monday's Times reported that Michael Gove, the shadow education secretary, had said Tony Blair was "not as popular as he deserves to be" and had been shown "amazing ingratitude" by his party. 

And I can see why Michael Gove said what he said. His education policies are indeed a souped-up version of the former prime minister's and – needless to say – a little political cross-dressing never goes amiss when there are voters to swing and an election to be won. But I'm also pretty sure that Gove doesn't believe for a second that the British public has much to thank Tony Blair for.

After all, it was on his watch that we got the tripartite financial regulation structure that failed so miserably at the first signs of a crisis. He was in charge when the inflation target was changed from RPIX to CPI, which almost certainly led to interest rates being lower than they would (and should) have been, fuelling our ill-fated credit boom.

It was the Blair government that expanded the remit of regulators to include social and environmental objectives, sparking the growth of a vast bureaucracy and saddling British businesses with a burden that now amounts to more than 10 percent of GDP.

There was the pensions tax grab, which wiped at least £150bn off British pension funds, and wrecked the best private pension scheme in Europe. And there were the endless stealth tax rises, perhaps most notably in National Insurance, where employee and employer contributions rose, the upper earnings limit was lifted above the rate of inflation, and a new band was introduced for higher earners.

Blair's government abolished the internal markets in health and education, before half-heartedly re-introducing them. It wimped out on welfare, asking Frank Field to think the unthinkable and promptly sacking him when he did. And from 2002 onwards, public spending spiralled out of control and debt went through the roof.

Then there was the corruption of the political process, with its contempt for parliament, its spin-doctored, sofa government, its dodgy dossiers and its loans-for-peerages. And of course, there was the unprecedented assault on civil liberties, with habeas corpus, trial by jury, double jeopardy, and freedom of speech all coming under attack.

So am I grateful? Well, no, not exactly.

Which god?

4024

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Republican or Democrat? Heavenly omnipotent being, or all-encompassing government? When you read about the political 'right' in America it is almost always prefixed with the term 'religious'. Yet the same tag could (and should) be placed in front of those often described as liberals* for their unbridled passion for government power over all aspects of life. This is the new religion. A pervasive, invasive power that goes against what the Founding Fathers truly believed the correct role of government to be.

A belief in big government is as bad for everyone else's health as federally sanctioned politics founded on religion. Holding one's beliefs in the vaulted halls of government buildings does not make one enlightened or more virtuous than the man who bends his knee before the altar. There was a reason the Founding Father's called for a separation of church and state juxtaposed with the freedom to worship: they feared a religious tyranny, desiring that no man be forced to believe in something he did not. Obama's health care reforms are just another example highlighting that America is a divided nation with many prepared to resist things they feel are unacceptable (Recent polling suggest that the US is still a conservative nation).

The Constitution in America was set out so that man could live free from interference. Protected from both religion and government. This is now a long forgotten ideal in the US as there are two sides who are committed to imposing their beliefs on the other (with the rest caught in the middle). This is detrimental to the freedom of all. If the Founding Fathers were alive today they would undoubtedly be shocked at what they saw. The relationship between the state and the individual has been overrun by big government, and both liberals and conservatives are to blame.

* The etymology of liberal does indeed mean those who favour government. On both sides of the Atlantic. Not to be confused with classic liberal. (More on this tomorrow).

Herbal highs

4023

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Soon herbal highs will be as rare as heroin and cocaine thanks to the magic of prohibition.

The NHS debate

4016

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I made a couple of media appearances yesterday to discuss the National Health Service. One of the points I stressed in both was how dismayed I have been by the level of political debate that this row – kicked off by American criticism of the NHS – has engendered.

The fact is that while there have been some improvements in the last decade, the NHS is by no means "the envy of the world". Indeed, on a whole range of indicators – whether it's patient satisfaction, waiting times, preventable deaths, stroke and cancer survival rates, hospital acquired infections, or the uptake of new drugs and technologies – the UK lags behind other European and developed countries.

The health service is hardly cheap either. We already spend £100bn a year on the NHS in England alone, and that figure looks set to continue rising regardless of who wins the next election. To put it another way, someone earning £30,000 a year will pay £2,300 in taxes to support the NHS. We may spend less than the US, but we also spend similar amounts to our European neighbours and get much less for it.

Britain deserves a proper, grown-up debate about its healthcare. But what do we get? Politicians 'tweeting' about how they love the NHS, and accusing anyone who dares disagree of being traitorous and unpatriotic. This is not just cowardly and infantile; it is also dishonest, shallow, and quite frankly pathetic.

Rather than burying our heads in the sand, we need to realize that there is a lot to learn from other countries – like Switzerland, the Netherlands and Singapore, among others – that provide better healthcare than we do. The key is to take the best elements of various systems come up with a reform model that will work in Britain.

A successful reform would likely embrace two key principles. The first is that healthcare is far too big and complex to be run from the top down. The second is that whether you are relying on tax or insurance to fund your healthcare, you can't completely isolate people from the cost of care, otherwise prices spiral out of control. I'll return to both these principles in future blog posts.
 

Fascism and communism: Two sides of the same coin

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In an article in last week’s Guardian, Jonathan Steele objects to the joint condemnation of communism and fascism. The moral he draws is that “History is too complex and sensitive to be left to politicians". Quite right, but it is also too complex to be used to defend a failed political ideology by crudely trying to show that another is worse.

Mr Steele was upset that the “23 August be proclaimed European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, in order to preserve the memory of the victims of mass deportations and exterminations". He felt this Declaration to be an attempt by former Soviet countries to discredit modern communists. Perhaps, but this observation does not mean the politicians are wrong to draw a parallel. It would be impossible to deny that Hitler discredits fascism and similarly the case stands for Stalin and communism. The other countless million murders that have taken place under fascist and communist regimes in other times and places also add to the case for the joint condemnation.

The European Declaration acknowledges the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in which Hitler and Stalin agreed not to attack each other and divide central Europe in anticipation of the ending of hostilities. In 1989, the Baltic Way defied the Soviet Union on the fiftieth anniversary of that pact. Thus, twenty years ago the atrocities of fifty years previous were part of the fabric of the present, as they are still very much in the minds of the people of the region today. Anyone who has visited countries of what made up the Soviet Union is immediately struck by the way in which government and people make every effort to draw attention to, educate and mark the atrocities of communism.

Mr Steele concludes with his fear that, “First they manipulate anniversaries, then they move to textbooks, and the slide gathers speed". Certainly, this is how governments the world over function if they are given control over setting public holidays, education etc. This slide is even more apparent when those in power have little or no limit to their actions; which of course is most evidenced in communist and fascist states, and is also why both these political systems should be comprehensively and unequivocally condemned, either together or separately, but certainly condemned.

Compassion for the victims

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Compassion towards our fellow man comes naturally. Yet there are those who seek to harm via atrocious acts; they dismiss compassion in the process.

Should we find those persons guilty of such transgressions, done under whatever banner, then we are excused from being unconditionally compassionate towards them. Releasing a man on 'compassionate grounds' after he has served only 8 years of a life sentence shows what government officials thought of his victims: very little. His reception in Libya highlights what the Libyans thought of this decision and Scotland.

There has long been a history of political interference in the judicial process and once again we have seen politics impact upon the realm of justice. Newspapers reported over the weekend that both the prime minister, Gordon Brown, and his first secretary of state, Lord Mandelson, have had recent dealings with Gaddafi and his son. We have to surmise what topics were discussed – the politicians involved are unlikely to come clean – but they shouldn't be surprised if two and two are put together and something in the region of four-and-a-half is the result.

There has already been much conspiracy theorising surrounding the Lockerbie Bombing (much relating to international relations and trade), but al-Megrahi was found guilty in an internationally recognised court of law, and justice was done.

8 years for killing 270 people? Justice should be allowed to take its natural course. And yes, the same applies to Mr Biggs. It is far more virtuous to show compassion to those that have already been harmed by an act of evil.

North on trade

4014

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There can be no trade unprofitable to the public, for if any prove so, men leave it off; and wherever the traders thrive, the public, of which they are a part, thrives also.

Dudley North 1691, Discourses upon Trade p. viii.

Why we love the profit motive: Katine edition

4012

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I have to admit to being fascinated by this development project that The Guardian is running in Katine, northern Uganda. Over a period of several years they're trying to see how and if it's possible to kick start development: a noble and worthy goal.

The fascination comes in part from my not quite understanding the mindset of those attempting to do the developing. There was one report about how there were not enough desks in the schools: not enough had been delivered by the Government apparently. But, umm, who would assume that in a poor country the Government ought to be delivering school desks? A table is not really all that high technology, a few burly blokes with machetes and a few days work in the woods would knock up something useable wouldn't it? Why this reliance upon the State, some hundreds of miles away over near impassable roads?

Another example is this piece about how a Coke (that's as in cola, not Charlie) is available in every village store but medicines are not. Or rather, medicines are indeed available in private stores, but not in the State run health care centres. The end of the piece is:

The new battle is now not just to get HIV medicines to people with Aids, but to get a consistent, affordable supply of essential drugs to all who need them. That means that governments in the west, as well as in developing countries, need to make money available, and turn their attention to supply systems. It can't be left to Coca-Cola barons. It's too important to leave to the market. Not just for Uganda, or Africa, but for all of us.

Excuse me, but given that the market does indeed get a consistent supply of drugs to those who need them, surely that means that it's too important not to use the market?

The demise of defined benefit pension schemes

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In recent years, many leading private sector companies have either closed or curtailed their defined benefit pension schemes. Just a handful of large companies, including Shell, now offer participation in a defined benefit pension scheme.

In part, this is due to pronounced changes in employment trends. Nowadays, there are comparatively few ‘lifers’, who join a company shortly after leaving school or university and remain in post until retirement beckons in their 60s. In previous generations, working for 40 years for a single private sector employer was not particularly unusual.

However, the cost of financing defined benefit pension schemes has become increasingly challenging, especially since people generally are living longer. Moreover, under recent changes to accounting rules, the net liabilities of defined benefit schemes are now effectively treated as debt in company balance sheets. Certain former publicly-owned companies, British Telecom (BT), British Airways (BA) and BAe Systems, are particularly exposed in this respect. Indeed, in recent years, both BT and BA have seen their share prices seriously impacted by their burgeoning pension liabilities – notwithstanding their own poor trading figures.

The drag on share price performance of sizeable defined benefit scheme liabilities is such that many companies are sharply scaling back pension entitlements. BP recently announced that new entrants would not be eligible to participate in its defined benefit pension scheme whilst Barclays plans to go further by closing its defined benefit scheme to existing members.

Perhaps not surprisingly, generous defined benefit pension schemes still prevail in the public sector – but for how long? Given that the unfunded pension liability of the public sector may exceed a staggering £1 trillion, it seems inevitable that the next government - of whatever political persuasion - will be forced to take aggressive action to reduce very substantially these liabilities.