Those folk you think are thick. They're probably wiser than you.

It seems - albeit a little tentatively - that people from 'lower social classes' are, in some contexts, wider than us clever folk with higher degrees:

The answer is that raw intelligence doesn’t reduce conflict, he asserts. Wisdom does. Such wisdom—in effect, the ability to take the perspectives of others into account and aim for compromise—comes much more naturally to those who grow up poor or working class, according to a new study by Grossman and colleagues.

Now, while I appreciate that a visit to Keighley on a Saturday night might present a different view on the working class and conflict, the findings here are really rather interesting:

We propose that class is inversely related to a propensity for using wise reasoning (recognizing limits of their knowledge, consider world in flux and change, acknowledges and integrate different perspectives) in interpersonal situations, contrary to established class advantage in abstract cognition. Two studies—an online survey from regions differing in economic affluence (n = 2 145) and a representative in-lab study with stratified sampling of adults from working and middle-class backgrounds (n = 299)—tested this proposition, indicating that higher social class consistently related to lower levels of wise reasoning across different levels of analysis, including regional and individual differences, and subjective construal of specific situations.

I'm struck by the bounds of this wisdom measure - knowing limits to knowledge, acknowledging change and different perspectives - because they present a very different approach to how people might assess a situation or a decision from the preferred and purely reason-based approach of the intellectual. Us clever folk tend to presume that, because we know a lot about one thing and have letters after our names, we are better able to see to the right choice - we fail to do what the wise person does and recognise that our knowledge is limited. Moreover, clever folk nearly always (witness the typical approach to economic modelling) start from an assumption of a stable status quo - wise folk know change is constant. And, because we're clever, us folk assume that we are right and that your opinion (unless it starts from recognising I am right) is of no consequence or worse still, just plain wrong - wisdom (and a peek at history) should tell us that other perspectives are helpful not a challenge to our intellectual prowess.

So next time some intellectual giant puts you down as thick, take a minute to respond that you may not have that book learning but you've a perspective, some limited knowledge and recognise that things seldom stay unchanged. Oh, and that this makes you wise - so listen up, clever folk, hark to the wisdom of ordinary folk.

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MPs and Syria - a defence of politicians

Events in Aleppo shock us all and, as we do when such things happen, we look around for people or organisations at which we can point a finger. "You should have done something," we cry. "Why didn't you act." "Blood is on your hands," "Something must be done."

The most common target for these cries, for this opprobrium is the politician:

Shame on you, Ed Miliband. Look at the “complete meltdown of humanity” that (according to the UN’s spokesman) is Aleppo today. Look at the footage of terror, trauma and dislocation. Then, if you dare, ask what you might have done to prevent it.

I hold no particular love for Ed Miliband and don't consider him the finest example of the political class but I believe this sort of attack illustrates a problem. It is very easy for someone who is not a politician, in this case the journalist Matthew d'Ancona, to lay into the choices that a politician makes about war. Mr d'Ancona - or for that matter, any other commenters - did not have to spent hours thinking through the consequences of a decision to put lives at risk. And in the case of Syria - as we've seen with Iraq and seen with Afghanistan - the decision makers are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

I refuse to indulge in this attack on politicians for making difficult - life and death - decisions. I am grateful that, back in August 2013, I was not one of those MPs charged with the decision to approve military action in Syria. One part of me looks at the events in Syria before that date and cries for justice, for someone to stop the atrocities visited on innocent Syrians - I recall a work colleague who spoke of how her brother-in-law's family had been exterminated for being seen as on the wrong side of a line they didn't know about.

But another part of me remembers thinking this about Iraq and Afghanistan. Innocent civilians dying beneath our bombs however carefully targeted those bombs might have been. And British servicemen killed and maimed fighting a humanitarian war in a place they'd never heard of before they'd signed up to defend their country.

I don't know how I would have voted had I been an MP that day but, as a politician of sorts, I'm not ready to condemn Ed Miliband or anyone else for making the decision they made back in 2013. Away from the actual decision-making it's very easy isn't it.

"Launch the bombers!"

"Send in the troops."

Yet in making these decisions we condemn people to die - either because we did act or because we didn't act. So when MPs sat and debated Syria - including many now focused on the terrible scenes unfolding in Aleppo - they had to weigh up what might be the consequences of action or inaction knowing that, however much pundits like Matthew d'Ancona might shout, there is no obvious and right course of action.

Instead of finding some politician to blame let's think of the majority of MPs, from whichever party, sitting with a cup or tea or a glass of beer thinking about how to vote on committing Britain to war. For some there'll be family and friends to help (or perhaps hinder) their thoughts, for others it's entirely lonely. A few of the gung ho or ideologically-driven will, uncaringly, find the decision easy but most MPs will waver and haver over whether to drop British bombs on Syrian targets.

Perhaps we should have decided to bomb Syria in August 2013. Maybe the events of the last few days are the consequence, in part, of us deciding not to drop those bombs. Whatever, with the sunlight of glorious hindsight, seems to be right or wrong, we should not blame MPs for hesitating before committing to risk the lives of British servicemen and Syrian civilians. Above all we were not sat in the House of Commons that day charged with the horrible task of choosing between death and destruction or death and destruction with British involvement. We do not live with that decision, with those dead bodies - politicians do.

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Brexit means we're leaving the EU - it really is that simple

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"But what does Brexit mean?"

In a multitude of comments, each coloured by the particular preference or prejudice of its author, this is the cry. It's not enough to say you want to Brexit, you have to set out all the precise constitutional, legal, economic, political, cultural and moral details of that Brexit. If you don't do so it isn't Brexit and we can carry on pretending that, on 23 June 2016, the British electorate didn't vote to leave the European Union.

Worse still you can get your lawyer friends to cobble together an argument that might - just might - mean that the referendum result can be ignored in favour of what you'd probably call 'wiser counsel'. And then get surprised when ordinary voters wonder what the hell you're on about and which bit of the word 'democracy' you fail to understand.

Some have a cannier approach - rather than trying to use legal legerdemain to try and get round the fact that people voted a way you didn't like, they set about a process of getting a second referendum so as to get the right result. That result being, of course, one they agree with - that overturns the mistaken decision of those 'excluded' and 'insular' voters last June. We're familiar with this disdain for European electorates - our lords and masters have rammed through second referendums in Ireland and Denmark and, in the case of France, simply ignored the referendum result completely.

In summary Brexit means we're leaving the European Union whether or not you are happy about that. As the Prime Minister said - "Brexit means Brexit".

What was this I heard you say? "What do you mean by 'Brexit means Brexit' then?"

Really? You've not worked this out then? It's simple - the people voted to leave the European Union and, therefore, the government is morally (if not strictly legally) bound to take us out of that Union. That's it - people didn't vote to do anything else and it's for the government to propose, parliament to debate and the application of politics to decide just what the details of leaving might be.

But that doesn't include an option where we ignore the wishes of the electorate and remain a member of the European Union.

In the future all things are possible but right now our government has to set out a timetable and process for leaving the EU. I'm pretty confident that is what it will do and I'm also pretty confident that the government will seek the support of parliament for that timetable and process. And that parliament - if it has any respect for the idea of democracy - will endorse a timetable and process for us to leave the European Union. Probably one pretty close to that set down by the Prime Minister and her government.

I appreciate that there remain a bunch of folk who hate the result of June's referendum. And they've every right to argue for us to stay in (or, in some future scenario, rejoin) the European Union. But right now the right - as in moral, ethical, democratic - thing to do is set about doing what the electorate asked for. That is to leave the European Union.

Now, as a consequence of this, the UK government might have less open borders - "an end to free movement" as its advocates put it. But that's not what we voted for - we voted to leave the EU. Other things may happen as a result of us leaving - we might see more state intervention in industry. We might see an upsurge in the sort of economic nationalism that people like Will Hutton have been advocating for years. And we might see some new regulations and the ending of some old regulations.

The point isn't that these changes are or aren't made but that they will be made by British governments through the UK parliament. And when it becomes clear that ending all but "high skilled" immigration is a bonkers idea, a future UK government can open the borders up again. And the same goes for trade deals, for tariffs, for regulations on the shape of bananas and for much else besides - the final decision, while moderated by treaty and international negotiation, will be made be people we can boot out if they get it wrong.

All Brexit means is that we're no longer a member of the European Union subject to the obligations in the various treaties that form that Union. That's it. Nothing else. Indeed all the other stuff people are talking about - the assorted bogeymen and doom-laden dystopia set out by disappointed Remain voters included - represent the consequence of choices that can, and will, be made by the UK government.

So instead of crying salty tears into your schooner of achingly trendy craft lager try accepting that Brexit means Brexit and moving on to argue for a post-EU Britain that follows the sorts of policy you think right. You might not get those policies - democracy is a pain - but if your policy is to plan to say "I told you so" on a loop tape then you will definitely be disappointed. We're leaving the EU - what matters is making that decision a great one not in either insulting those who made that choice or else sitting with your bottom lip out and arms crossed sulking because your side lost.

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"You're not entitled to your opinion": Plato, proto-fascism and the cult of the expert

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You're not entitled to your opinion insists philosophy lecturer, Patrick Stokes:

The problem with “I’m entitled to my opinion” is that, all too often, it’s used to shelter beliefs that should have been abandoned. It becomes shorthand for “I can say or think whatever I like” – and by extension, continuing to argue is somehow disrespectful. And this attitude feeds, I suggest, into the false equivalence between experts and non-experts that is an increasingly pernicious feature of our public discourse.

Let's get the first thing out of the way. You may be entitled to your opinion but that doesn't stop it being a stupid opinion. And Stokes is right when he observes that students in his class have to argue for their opinion (it is, after all, a philosophy class) The problem is that, as is common in this argument about the value of opinion, Stokes then invokes Plato to substantiate his opinion on who else is allowed to have an opinion. This invocation is backed up with a particularly egregious example of bad opinions being given too much credence.

My problem with this isn't that (using Stokes' example) arguing against vaccination programmes has much validity but rather the wider difficulty in deciding who is or is not an expert. In the case Stokes cites, the distinction is easy but this is seldom the case when it comes to argument. Let's take economics and the example of Paul Krugman. Now Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, the very acme of the expert, he is - in Stokes' view - entirely entitled to his opinion. Yet what we get as a result is statements made purely on the basis that 'I am an expert ergo my opinion is valid, you are not an expert ergo your opinion is not valid'.

I wrote about an occasion of Krugman's approach to being an expert a year or so ago:

When confronted with the moral argument that debt means having something now rather than later - meaning of course that we, given the likely timescale for debt repayment, are taking that from future generations - Krugman chooses instead to talk about the lack of graduate job prospects. Rather than addressing the real issue raised - government debt as deferred taxation, Krugman chooses to talk about a relatively minor labour demand issue.

And then when Angela Leadsom raises supply side considerations - how to help the economy create jobs - Krugman lapses into accusations that Ms Leadsom and others are ideologically motivated and using the current crisis to shrink the size of the state. At no point in this does Krugman respond to or consider whether there are any supply side constraints. He waffles vaguely that there's no evidence of supply side constraint (in the US) and states baldly that the whole problem is a matter of demand. More seriously - from the point of debate - he accuses others of insincerity and exploitation without evidence.

What we see here is a 'cult of the expert'. Krugman is right because he is an expert not because, as an expert, he has set out his opinion and refuted (with reason) the arguments from others that challenge that opinion. This is the core ideal of Plato's politics - that society would be better if its management wasn't left to the ignorance of everyman but determined by ruling philosophers. This proto-fascism is the prime cancer in European thought since it seeks to deny the ignorant agency while at the same time deciding ignorance on the basis of an ideology - "I am an expert and you are not".

The argument that Stokes puts forward - "equivalence between experts and non-experts that is an increasingly pernicious feature of our public discourse" - might have some validity if experts were limited by their expertise. We have no issue with a scientist making clear that ceteris paribus vaccines are safe and providing scientific evidence to support that opinion. Indeed decision-makers would be foolish to disregard such an opinion unless there was a substantial and evidenced challenge to it.

The problem is that relatively few things within public discourse are as clear as the example that Stokes is using. This means we either have competing experts or else a situation where there is no valid expert opinion. And we still face the problem as to who defines the expert - here's a good example.

A few days ago two academics, Sara Kalkhoran and Stanton Glantz, published a 'systematic review and meta-analysis' of ecigs and smoking cessation concluding that ecigs reduced rates of smoking cessation. Now these are experts (I think we can state, for the sake of our argument, that an academic publishing research is de jure an expert) so, using Stokes argument, we should be giving credence to their opinion. Indeed the World Health Organisation has done just that - using Glantz's research and comment as a core element in its published advice to policy-makers on ecigs.

The problem is this:

"The problems with the authors’ interpretation of the two papers mentioned above are as follows: The first study (Adkson et al) is not longitudinal as has been reported here – e-cigarette use was measured at follow up, the same time as quit status was ascertained. The second study (Hitchman et al) included smokers who were using e-cigarettes at baseline and therefore included smokers who may have tried to use e-cigarettes to quit and failed, and excluded smokers who successfully used e-cigarettes to quit. The authors of this meta-analysis had been previously informed by the authors of the Adkison paper that they were misreporting the findings.”

Such a damning response doesn't, of course, stop the 'public discourse, from presenting Glantz's work without challenge or question. Were Glantz simply an ideological advocate in the manner of Meryl Dorey (Stokes' anti-vaxxer) then he could be dismissed in the same manner. However Glantz is a tenured academic as well as an ideological advocate - his expertise remains even when other researchers present effective challenge. The same - which is why Stokes' position is wrong - applies to Paul Krugman. Without the possibility of some little boy pointing out the emperors lack of clothes, we have the prospect of rule by an ever less accountable 'intellectual' clique conforming to the central Platonic error - that society can be managed by clever men.

Since we're arguing here about the distinction between 'the man in Whitehall knows best' and 'trust the people', it makes sense to enquire which of these two positions manages society best. And there's lots of evidence - some scientific, some historical and some based in reason - arguing both sides. Indeed there are many supporters for the 'philosopher king' model of rule by experts despite the evidence from Soviet Russia, from Germany and, more recently from Cuba or Venezuela that such a model will always (you can't think of everything) result in sub-optimal outcomes. Including some sub-optimal outcomes that result in millions dying painful and premature deaths.

Today this cult of the expert more and more governs our decision-making:

Right across government we see decision-making that should be done by people accountable to the public being done by the unelected - local enterprise partnerships, schools forums, probation boards, a veritable host of the unelected and unaccountable. This is post-democracy - consultation, partnership and the 'professional' have replaced the tried and tested process of electing people to make decisions on our behalf. We have decided that democracy - elections, MPs, councillors and so forth - are a bit of a pain. Or rather we haven't decided, the system has gradually sidelined politicians - the people's representatives - to the stage where the only way for us to effect any change is for us to join in the game, to play at post-democracy.

Democracy isn't modern and it runs counter to our cult of the expert, our obsession with that unreachable ideal of 'evidence-based policy'. So the powerful have emasculated democracy and replaced it with a pretty spectacle, a place of sound and fury. Great fun, as observers of parliament know, but ultimately pointless. The decisions are made somewhere else.

And so long as men like Patrick Stokes, for noble reasons and using egregious examples like Meryl Dorey, promte that cult of the expert to students will will continue to undermine liberty in the cause of better government, to take a few more baby steps towards the Platonic ideal of a fascist autocracy where all-knowing philosophers order society in the interests of a supine unquestioning (for questioning the expert is a sin) mass of the population.

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This is not a scandal - it merely shows us the difference between policy and advice

It is reported that 'minsters pressured' the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE as it's illiterately known) on the matter of minimum pricing for booze:

MINISTERS are accused of pressuring an independent health watchdog into dropping support for minimum booze pricing.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence removed backing for the scheme from recent NHS guidelines. It had previously supported it in advice which said slashing OAPs’ drinking could cut dementia.

But a British Medical Journal probe claims the watchdog only made the change after health ministers intervened.

Well actually this allegation - unsurprisingly from the British Medical Journal the house magazine for nannying fussbuckets and health fascists - is completely false.

NICE were clear that they had given advice on this matter and that it wasn't withdrawn (just not repeated - NICE isn't a lobby group). What we have here is departmental officials explaining that policy decisions are for ministers, the people elected to do that job, not advisors. And ministers are entitled to make policy decisions that run counter to the advice they are given by bodies like NICE. It is not the role of an advisory body like NICE to make statements of support for or disagreement with policy when that support or opposition is contrary to the government's position.

I wouldn't expect the fussbuckets to understand this distinction - indeed they usually adopt the position that government should do exactly what they say even when, as is the case with minimum pricing for alcohol or taxing sugar, the negative impact of that policy is very considerable (something the fussbuckets can ignore but which ministers have a duty to consider). What this advice to NICE reminds us is that political decision-making is - or should be - the reserve of the politicians we elect not advisory bodies. And there is no doubt that imposing a price floor or a new tax is a political decision not merely 'public health advice'.

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Politics and science...

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"A soldier, having seen traces of a horse in the sand, will immediately pass from the thought of a horse to the thought of a horseman, and from that to the thought of war...But a farmer will pass from the thought of a horse to the thought of a plough." Spinoza

There's a tendency for some educated scientific people to consider that you can reduce the process of political decision-making to an exercise in the scientific method. Some sort of 'test' is conducted and the results mandate the policy decision. Most often the 'test' isn't an actual experiment (these are, as those scientists should know, pretty hard to construct in real human populations) but some sort of meta-analysis of smaller tests and analyses. From this process we arrive at statements like 'the science is settled' and 'nearly all scientists agree' despite the scientific truth being a whole lot more nuanced.

A related approach is to assume that a human problem identified by 'science' must require the intervention of the state for its resolution. At this point I can hear some on the left peeling away from the argument but bear with me because this really isn't about left/right or big/small government but about the role and purpose of two different things - science and politics. It would be a rum do if we used politics to determine the outcome of science. Why then do some people not see an equivalent problem in trying to use science to make political decisions?

Scientific and political questions are framed very differently. This is for good reason. A scientist would not, for example, ask "Should Scotland be an independent country? Yes/No". Yet this is an entirely valid question in a political context that will lead to a clear decision. A scientist might ask 'what would Scottish independence mean for X' and then try to construct some sort of test to answer the question. And the findings from that scientific enquiry might well help people answer the political question. But the science does not provide the answer.

The second point about that independence question is that is it absolute - the 'right' answer is that answer securing the most votes. Fifty Per Cent Plus One is enough. For science that isn't enough. Read any piece of good scientific research and you will see caveats - a section perhaps entitled 'limitations' setting out the constraints of the test being conducted and towards the end of the paper a piece on the need for further research. Good scientific research doesn't answer questions so much as turn one question into a myriad of other questions. Such an approach is fantastic if we want to understand the world but worse than useless if we want to decide whether or not Scotland should be independent.

So when a writer - as happens here - singles out one political ideology as peculiarly anti-science this is the result of either a profound ignorance of politics and the political process or else the presentation of a personal ideology as if it were scientific fact. Indeed, we can observe the same from other political perspectives - the adherence of many on the left to the view that GMOs are bad, nuclear power peculiarly dangerous and pesticides destructive is a fine example of how scientific evidence is routinely ignored.

If we are to 'respond' to climate change this does not mean that there must be more government, more regulation and some sort of crusade to stamp out any capitalism bigger than the corner shop or the local agricultural co-op. Those who choose to say 'I don't believe a word of it' also cannot be dismissed because they might just be right.  The problem is (and here's some science) that our ideology - political bias - means that we do one of two things: either we make choices that fit our existing bias or else we select particular findings while ignoring others again to fit a prior bias.

To return to that Scottish independence question again. Were I a 'Yes' supporter seeking evidence to support my case, I would select those studies, tests and experiments that support my contention that Scotland should be independent. I would also ignore the element of choice involved in political decisions. There are costs and benefits to every decision but political or ideological bias leans us towards emphasising only the costs or only the benefits.

To give another example, the argument that alcohol costs the UK £21bn each year is, say public health people, derived from scientific enquiry. It may well be a true figure. But against that figure we have to set an estimate of the benefits society gains from alcohol not just jobs, businesses and exports but the pleasure we get from a glass of wine or a pint of beer.

In the end we have become rather too dependent on scientific enquiry in answering (rather than framing) political questions. And the risk here is that the scientist, once removed from the constraints of experimental investigation, is likely to be just as ideologically biased as the non-scientist. Indeed, what we get too often is a complete misrepresentation of the ideology with which the scientist is disagreeing. To suggest that somehow 'libertarians' balance "individual rights against the rights of others" is a complete misrepresentation both of libertarianism and of the small-government conservsatism that the author was actually criticising.

One of the curiosities about what we might call the 'scepticism movement' is its ideological attachment to a sort of social democratic human engineering view of politics. I compare this to the commonplace view among the centre-right that everything would be fine if only we put businessmen in charge. For the 'sceptics' the solution appears to lie in sort sort of post-democratic technocracy where the task of politics is to implement the 'findings' of the scientific consensus and that politicians should be slaves to the selected and presented evidence. A side effect of this concept in politics is the modern idea of leadership - politicians' task is to 'lead' the reluctant and recalcitrant populace towards to consensus defined by the technocrats' 'science'.

None of this is to dispute the value of science. Rather I want to step back from the fetishising of scientific enquiry as the only worthy decision-making system. Instead of a "science says yes" process called evidence-based policy making, we need to understand that the purpose of the evidence is to inform our decision-making not to do that decision-making for us. And the point and purpose of democracy - lost in translation all too often - is for the people or the representatives of the people to make choices about things that can't be (or aren't) made in the market.

Like everyone else scientists are prejudiced, have irrational attachments to ideological positions and allow personal likes and dislikes to colour their thinking. I take the view - like many of those libertarians - that most of the time decisions are better taken in the marketplace where mutual benefit and added value determine the outcome. But this is an ideological position - one with a great deal of scientific support as it happens - and others will believe differently. As we've seen with the independence debate, scientific enquiry can only inform the choice that people have before them.

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The "town-hall zombies"

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Matthew Parris has the knack of articulating things many of us have struggled with - this week he comments on local government. That it's done in the light of the "Rotherham Case" shouldn't blind us to the truth of what he says:

...what makes the blood boil in their immediate and instinctive reaction is the implication that human judgment can be removed from a decision-making process; that at a certain happy moment early in the 21st century, the science of local government attained a state of such perfect precision that no poor, fallible human mind was any longer required to make any actual, fallible human judgment. It became sufficient to enumerate and validate the inputs — the criteria that had to be met, the questions that had to be asked, the people who had to be informed, and the allowable reasons upon which the decision might be grounded — and the machine would then whirr, click and finally ping and, hey presto, you had your output: your decision. Should any appeal then arise, the review would consist in checking that the machine was working, and that the appropriate data had been fed into it.

It is hard to fault this analysis of the attitude of local government nor to notice that the Rotherham case is the fault of politicians not simply the mistake of local bureaucrats. It is politicians - nationally and locally - that agree the 'frameworks' and 'guidelines' for social workers (and planners, licensing officers, environmental health - indeed the entrie panoply of local government regulation). But we - and I am one of these politicians - stand by and acquiesce in the acts of 'professionals' simply because they are professionals.

"Town-hall zombies", Parris calls those administering these processes, crafting these guidelines and shambling round the dysfunctional and sub-optimal machine that is local government. The problem is that so many of my councillor colleagues - from every party and none - have been infected by the zombies and, rather than using our power to make that guidance, those regulations and frameworks serve the people, we act to defend the bureaucracy and its merchants.

But Matthew Parris is wrong about one thing. He tells us these Process People are peculiar to local government. They are not - this outlook, along with the triumph of project management over expertise, is seen throughout government and increasingly in big business too. We really should ask, as Parris does:

These, the Process People, are proving utterly impervious to the growing swirl of common sense gusting around their brick and concrete citadels. How are they to be dislodged?

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On consultation...

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Local government is encouraged - in that gloriously passive aggressive manner beloved of the Department for Communities and Local Government - to "consult" on the setting of budgets. And Councils, carefully and studiously adhere to this requirement setting about extensive and carefully planned consultations.

This evening I attended one of those consultations. Not in Bradford but elsewhere to see what it looks like from the perspective of a consumer of consultation rather than a producer. The Council in question has gone to a lot of trouble - a structured and engaging process, lots of nice technology and a slightly patronising presentation that had the merit of not quite saying "this is all too complicated for ordinary humans to comprehend."

I understand that this show had been on the road - popping into different locations across the borough in question to do the consultation with folk for whom going into the town centre is a rare (even unlikely) occasion. Tonight it arrived in town complete with the Council leader, Chief Executive, Director or Finance and a collection of other councillors and officers. The Council in question has made a genuine and substantial effort to "consult".

And they engaged with about 30 members of the public (including several like me who are offcumdens and only there because our professional life requires it). And this - the lack of public - underlines the problems with consultations. Let's assume that the consultation roadshow stopped at twenty places, each generating 30-50 members of the public. That's 1000 people who have taken part in the consultation out of a population of over 200,000. Those people are not representative - indeed the chances of them having (as I did) a vested interest in one or other aspect of the Council's work is, I suspect, pretty high.

There is no way that - however hard the Council has tried - this consultation can represent the views of the local populace. And this begs a question about the whole process - the perceived need for this "consultation". It seems to me that this "need" reflects the loss of confidence in representative democracy rather than any improvement to the processes of government.

Today, rather than our role of representing the people who elect us in the decision-making of the Council, us local councillors are told we are "community leaders". Instead of representation our role is to act as some sort of cheerleader for endless processes of "engagement" and "involvement". Yet, despite this change, 90% of the population remain neither engaged nor involved in these processes. And the result of this disengagement and non-involvement is that consultation processes become captured by the interested rather than reflecting of public concern (let alone opinion).

The odd thing is that us councillors are told our authority is undermined by low turnouts. Yet around 4,500 folk took part in electing me - almost certainly more that will take part in Bradford's budget "consultation". And in the course of the year I will speak to hundreds of those folk - listening, arguing and, if you must, "consulting". All that these requirements to consult do is to further undermine the role of the councillor.

We replace electoral accountability with consultations that fail to reflect the views of most people, can be manipulated by the interested and that are controlled by council officers. I see no point or purpose to them.

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Decisions...

The Quaker Meeting House at Sedburgh

Quakers - as far as I recall - have this idea of 'waiting on god'. There is no service, people say more-or-less what they want. I'm probably wrong in this but it always seemed an interesting idea. It is a fine thought that a whole 'service' can pass without a word being said and for those present to see this as good and valuable.

The first that enters into the place of your meeting. . . turn in thy mind to the light, and wait upon God singly, as if none were present but the Lord; and here thou art strong. Then the next that comes in, let them in simplicity of heart sit down and turn in to the same light, and wait in the spirit; and so all the rest coming in, in the fear of the Lord, sit down in pure stillness and silence of all flesh, and wait in the light . . . . Those who are brought to a pure still waiting upon God in the spirit, are come nearer to the Lord than words are; for God is a spirit, and in the spirit is he worshiped. . . . In such a meeting there will be an unwillingness to part asunder, being ready to say in yourselves, it is good to be here; and this is the end of all words and writings—to bring people to the eternal living Word.

It's OK, dear readers, I am not rushing off to sign up for the Religious Society of Friends, but the idea of waiting for 'the light' - however we may want to define that 'light' - is a very appealing idea. We are too ready to shout over others, to engage in a babble of debate, bandying words, opinions, numbers and statistics around as if by their sheer quantity we will demonstrate the truth or proof we seek.

I like also the idea that we listen - I'm not very good at this but I like the thought. Not just to the opinions of others as if we were some sort of knowledge sponge but to the deeper sounds - what I guess the Quakers would call 'god'. We are enjoined to be logical as if that state is the antithesis of spiritual. We are told to seek truth yet do so without either the tools or a map for such a search.

Politics exists for one reason - we have to make decisions. There is no other purpose to the profession - the good folk of Bingley Rural elect me to do that for them. My problem is that, when the work informing us is done well, those decisions are not easy. We get little chance to contemplate, to wait for that 'light' - so often we end up uncomfortable with the compromise, questioning of the evidence and unsure of the options. Yet a decision must be made. So we make one.

For me the result of this is to doubt. I've said before that no-one without doubt can be a conservative and this remains my view. And I believe that the central importance of doubt should lead us to political inaction rather than political action. Since we cannot be sure that the changes proposed will make things better, the current arrangement should be preferred unless it is broken beyond redemption.

Perhaps, before making those decisions - before changing something, ahead of curtailing someone's rights or ending someone's business - we should sit in silent contemplation of the decisions we will take. We should maybe listen to the deeper sound of society, think closely about what it might mean for our neighbour and then decide whether we make the change. Perhaps, instead of filling rooms with statistics, analysis and documentation that no one person has read let alone understood, we should instead think whether, when we think of what we've chosen, our heads will go up and a smile will come on our face.

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Here's a dilemma....

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...perhaps not too tricky a dilemma for some but interesting nonetheless.

Bradford Council (pdf) run 11 residential homes for the elderly in which live around 300 people supported by a significant number of council employees. It might be helpful for you to know that the cost per resident, per week in Council-run homes is roughly 50% greater that the cost for the same service in the private and voluntary sector. The Council is consulting on closing some of these homes, keeping some and building new ones as part of a major reconfiguration of the service. This is based on assumptions that a capital strategy to fund this development programme can be constructed. The driver for the strategy isn't "cuts" but a realisation that the Council service does not begin to meet the expected needs of future users.

However, the Council's Adult Social Care Directorate has been asked to consider how up to £27million in savings might be delivered within the overall service (this is a 25% reduction). The aim has - I'm sure you will agree - got to be to maintain current services which include residential care, domiciliary support (what we used to call 'home helps') and a range of day care and other support to vulnerable adults. One option in all this is to adjust the basis on which service and support is provided - rather than providing free care to those elderly people with 'moderate' or greater needs we could limit such provision to those with 'substantial' or higher needs.

Now the direct saving from shutting the homes and buying places in the private sector is £3.6million. This figure is slightly higher than the savings we might realise from changing what are know as 'Fair Access to Care Services' (FACS) criteria (somewhere between £2m and £3m) all this can only be an estimate subject to detailed appriasal and possible legal challenge. The result of changing such criteria is that some people who receive a given service from the Council will no longer receive that service.

It seems to me that in this dilemma lies one of the great lies we hear from the left - and indeed from the unions representing public employees. Closing eleven council old folks' homes will not result in any loss of service - the residents will be housing and cared for to the same standards as before - but will result in the redundancy of the council staff working in those homes. Changing the FACS criteria will not result in any loss of Council employment (most of the services are delivered within the private or voluntary sectors) but will result in a reduction in service to vulnerable adults.

This is a simplified version - the full picture is more complicated - but it indicates the sort of decision being made by local councils across the country. And remember that (while those councils are not wholly innocent) Councillors making the decisions are doing so within the funding available. What I wonder is how many Councillors would opt for closing homes and face the unions' opprobrium and how many would take the savings elsewhere - and actually reduce service to the public - rather than make those care home employees redundant?

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Secrecy is inevitable and probably necessary

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Secrecy is necessary.

I don’t say this as some form of defence for authoritarian government, for the gagging of journalists or to defend “national security”. These are spurious explanations for secrecy.

No, we need secrecy. And shall have that secrecy.

To illustrate, let me tell you a story about a former colleague, now an MP. Whenever there was something he wanted to say – a discussion needed – he would suggest we went for a walk. At the time, I assumed that the reason was to allow us a talk and smoke – but now I realise that the point was to avoid being overheard and to ensure that anything said was unattributable. Secrecy was protected since only the two of us knew what was said and, as importantly, every thing said was deniable. I know a great deal about that former colleague.

The theft of diplomatic cables and their transfer to a third party has been lauded by some as a kind of ultimate freedom of information success. Yet if we stop and think for a minute or two, we’ll realise that the result of these ‘leaks’ – the consequence of insecure systems – will be to end the documentation of opinion and analysis. This creates a less transparent, riskier and more corruptible policy and decision-making process. We have seen the degree to which our masters are trustworthy and having a yet more opaque system would act only to increase the opportunity for self-interest and greed to dominate choices made by politicians, civil servants and other public servants.

You may revel in this new age of open-ness – where theft is excusable because of some cod interpretation of public interest. But we will all pay for it since the response of governments will be to make undocumented decisions wherever possible. We will become a land governed even more by tittle-tattle, back-stabbing and slander rather than an more open, more democratic society.

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You don't think Councillors have any say on these matters, do you? We're lucky to be 'consulted'!

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Now dearly beloved reader, I’m going to explain how our system of local government works and, specifically the role of the councillor (or rather ‘elected member’ as we are more commonly called these days).

I know that you believe Councillor’s to be all powerful, semi-divine, genii bestriding and directing the colossus of local government (or maybe a bunch of self-serving, money-grubbing second-rate has-beens). But understand this. Most – 99% of the decisions on policy taken by local councils are not taken following debate at a committee. Councillors – well, most of us – simply aren’t involved at all in the decisions taken by the councils to which we are elected.

In the comments to this campaigning post from Anna Raccoon about Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council’s decision to fine a woman for flicking cigarette ash is this desire:

That ‘revised Enforcement Policy’ does make for some terrifying reading. I would love to have been in that council committee and listened and watched the type of people that came up with that vile and sinister piece.

One hates to disappoint but, my guess (I did try to find the actual minute but – and this is indicative of the problem – finding minutes and agendas of committee meetings on SMBC’s website isn’t easy) is that the offending policy was agreed by “cabinet” which means no public discussion and debate as that august body has only Labour members selected by the leader. This is confirmed by the revised ‘Governance Arrangements’ (another document most councilors won’t have read).

The truth is that decisions in local government aren’t taken in the manner most ordinary people – including quite well-informed ordinary people – believe is the case. Us councilors no longer sit on various committees in numbers reflecting the political balance of the council. Eight or ten councilors make up a (usually) one-party executive – often pompously called the ‘cabinet’ – and it is here that the decisions are taken. But understand that any discussion takes places away from the scrying eyes of the public – in Bradford we had a thing called “CMT” consisting of Executive Members and the Council’s “Strategic Directors” where the real decisions were made. You must also understand that most of the decisions are made under “delegated authority” by one or other ‘strategic director’.

Which brings me to a second example, the proposed banning of a march through Bradford by the English Defence League (EDL) and, one assumes, any counter-march by the equally unpleasant ‘Unite Against Fascism’ (UAF). Although the permission to grant a ban came from the Home Office, this was on application from Bradford Council’s Chief Executive. You will, of course, not that no politicians are quoted in the BBC report. The only comment I can find is a mealy-mouthed, weasel-worded one from Ian Greenwood, Council Leader:

We are grateful to the Home Secretary for considering this. It is not an easy decision.

The decision relating to this ban – a significant decision to limit fundamental freedoms – has not been taken following political debate. The majority of councillors haven’t been asked for their view and certainly haven’t had any chance to vote. The matter hasn’t been before a committee – even a one-party ‘cabinet’.

Understand that this is the norm for decisions in local government – you elect councillors believing they might have some say over these kind of momentous decisions and that they will be involved in discussing and debates major policies like the enforcement policy in Sandwell. Sorry to disappoint, we’ve not and haven’t been since the last Labour government “modernised” local government.

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Unopposed development in the 'Green Belt' - a guide to planning idiocy

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I try very hard to be positive about the planning system. But this (starts on page 19) makes me want to weep:

A full application for construction of a new livestock building together with retention of part of a general purpose agricultural building. Land at Beckfoot House, Beckfoot Lane, Harden, Bingley.

This application is recommended for refusal despite letters of support from neighbours and there being no local objections at all. Those people who will be affected by the development think its fine – why do planners think they know better?

And what do the planners seem to think? Well it appears to me that despite the weasel words used the main driver for the decision is a belief that the applicant isn’t a proper farmer.

the main issue to consider in determining this application continues to be the impact of the building on the openness of the green belt and the character and appearance of the landscape due to its bulk and scale and its prominent siting - especially given the relatively small size of the land holding and the scale and prominence of the building.

The building is too big and therefore might be used for dreadful, nefarious purposes (in this case the rumour is that the applicant intends to keep his racing cars in the new barn – odd given he has a perfectly good garage for them). The other problem is that the planners want to dictate precisely where on the holding a barn should be cited rather than allowing the landowner to decide according to his needs.

And the planners return to their innuendo again:

The building will have to be significantly adapted to make it suitable to accommodate livestock which casts some doubt on its original intended purpose.

Of course they have no evidence to support this statement – it’s just lobbed in there to cast doubt on the applicants farming credentials despite this:

…an agricultural statement from agents representing the applicant describes the applicant’s intention to establish a pedigree beef herd and sheep flock. It says that the location of the building is justified in terms of practicality for the farming enterprise, topography and access and to avoid potential conflict with neighbouring properties. The size is said to be justified by reference to welfare standards and regulations governing the housing of livestock and by reference to the amount of feed, straw equipment and ancillary items such as medicines required by the intended number of livestock. The applicant anticipates keeping up to 8 cows, each with calves and a maximum of 20 sheep. The cows will have to be housed indoors over winter. The portion of the building that needs to be rebuilt to accommodate livestock seems to have been designed to reflect DEFRA recommendations and welfare guidance.

Despite this the planners are back with their ‘you’re not a proper farmer’ implications:

It has not been explained why a building of the proportions and in the position agreed under the Prior Approval procedure would not suffice given the small scale of the holding.

Er...did you not read the Agent's statement?

None of these issues is material to the planning decision but they provide important background noise for the planners – substantiating their argument that this barn is too big and in a prominent position. The crux of the planning argument relates to whether the development is allowed in the ‘green belt’ – and, ceteris paribus, if it has a clear agricultural justification then planning permission is not required.

What I find most disturbing about this case is the manner in which rumour and innuendo about the applicant’s purposes in building the barn appear to have influenced the decision and, in particular, the assessment of the agricultural case for the development. In the view of neighbours this development is, at worst, of no impact and for some a real advantage. But the treatment of the case by the planners – the questioning of the applicants motives, the dismissal of planting schemes and the constant reference to the scale of the farm – serve to create the context for those planners to propose refusal on the grounds of impact in the green belt.

An impact that has been mitigated:

The impact of the building when viewed from Beckfoot Lane has been heightened by removal of mature trees from along the lane during 2008. These have been replaced by new planting carried out in conjunction with the Forest of Bradford. A previous letter from the Trust confirms that 350 whips and 45 light standard trees have been planted on the applicant’s land as an initial phase of a planting programme which will continue with new tree planting and new hedgerows to be planted on the holding in November 2009. The applicant intends to plant at least 3 acres of the holding as woodland copses.

Pretty good stuff – just what the planning system should support? But in this case the planner isn’t happy:

…it would be some years before such planting provided effective screening to a structure that is 31 metres long and over 7 metres high for 2/3rds of its length.

But - as this statement suggests - it will screen the development in years to come.

But it gets better - the planners even go so far as to criticise the tree planting itself!

…the new planting proposed may, in itself, detract from the open pasture character of the landscape.

I’m laughing now – anyone who know the ‘twines’ and the Harden Beck valley will know it is a mixture of woodland, copse and fenced grazing – there isn;t any ‘open pasture’. The statement appears designed to substantiate the view of the planners rather than to describe the valley in which this development is proposed.

It is likely that a proposed development that improves life for local residents, provides facilities for a local farmer, is supported by several letters and by ward members will be refused.

The planning system really is a joke.

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F.A.Smith, financial decision-making and the understanding of numbers

The holidaying Geek from Oxfordshire posted a little video explaining the problem with big numbers. It points out that huge numbers mean almost nothing to us – in truth we struggle to make the distinction or have any real grasp of the scales involved. And this becomes more problematic when political communicators (which some folk feel is spelled “L. I. A. R. S.”) mix up the measures used by switching between millions and billions or by referring to percentages in the same sentence as real numbers.

And this confusion is compounded by mixing up concepts – right now most of the public don’t know the difference between “debt” and “deficit”. This isn’t because the public are stupid – in their own lives they’re pretty good at understanding budget deficit (I’ve got more to pay out than I’ve got coming in) and total debt (I owe so much but only have to pay a little of it back right now). It is because our political leaders like us confused. And right now they’d like us to think that halving the deficit – reducing the country’s overspend by half – can be seen as somehow reducing the debt when that simply isn’t true as each year that debt is getting bigger.

Which brings us to F.A. Smith, who was born in a back-to-back in Heanor, Derbyshire, went down the pit at 14, got out of the pit and into college and ended up as a regional director of British Coal. He was also my grandfather and, most relevant to this discussion, Chairman of Penge Urban District Council in the 1950s. And we are concerned with his view on the setting of budgets, which can be stated as follows:

“…the amount of debate about a given budget item is in inverse proportion to its financial value.”

Thus an hour or more might be taken arguing about how much it cost to clean the Chairman’s car or the saving from not providing tea and biscuits at meetings whereas the multi-million pound redevelopment of the town centre will go through more-or-less on the nod. So to link back to the spin referred to above, we spend ages discussing how much NHS hospital chief executives are paid – and getting ever more indignant about it – while ignoring the fact that halving the pay of every senior civil servant will not make any noticeable difference to the scale of either deficit or debt.

When big decisions finally do get made about the deficit (and the debt), those decisions won’t be subject to great campaigns, intense scrutiny or detailed debate. Nor will they feature on the front page of the newspapers for weeks on end. These are big decisions about cuts in spending, about making jobs redundant and about stopping providing services or giving benefits that are given today. And they will be made in comfortable offices away from public attention, managed through party whips and delivered in the form of a dry statement from ministers.

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Wednesday Whimsy: why a lottery might be better than elections

Sortition: making a decision by using lots (straws or pebbles etc.) that are thrown or drawn

MPs don't have a good press at the moment. In fact most folk's opinion of the typical MP isn't printable in a family-oriented blog such as this one. Suffice it to say that self-serving, greedy, opportunistic, lying and deceitful litter said opinions spiced up by choicer, more colourful descriptors.

So why do we have MPs? Is representative democracy really all it's cracked up to be? And are there alternative methods of making decisions that are fairer and more transparent? Only slightly tongue-in-cheek I'd like to explore replacing electing MPs to a parliament with selecting an assembly charged merely with making the decision - with the selection done by sortition.

Why you ask should this be considered? Because our system of governance is decaying and we are watching - among the latest scandals - another stage in the rotting of our body politic. And frankly we don't think MPs either represent us or have the slightest inclination to provide us with service. One of the best indicators of this decay is the role, size and scope of political parties.

Back in 1953 there were nearly 3 million members of the Conservative Party and over 1 million members of the Labour Party. These were the two largest voluntary organisations in the country organised at every level - from the highest places of power down to the smallest of local communities. In the factory, mill and mine communities of Northern England the Labour Party was as important an institution as the Methodist church, the working man's club and the trade union - it was part of the social fabric of these places. Similarly in the London suburbs and market towns the Conservative Party, the Conservative Club and the Primrose League were all important social institutions sitting alongside the Church of England, the Masons and the Chamber of Trade as key drivers of these communities.

Today all has changed - the Conservative Party has barely 250,000 members and the Labour Party just 160,000. All the political parties in the country can't scrape together many more than 500,000 folk to pay a subscription. These are dying organisations now dominated by the ambitious, by anoraks and by those who have to join so as to get elected. Yet today Political Parties are brought by law into the governance of the UK - we have a whole election driven entirely by political party label and we stagger and lurch each day towards a politics controlled by the few large paymasters of the big political parties.

We will have to change. And change must be radical. So put an end to representative democracy - it has had its time. Let's usher in a new age of participation and let's do so using a simple, fair and easily understood mechanism - the lottery. We want 650 men and women to decide on our laws? Choose them from the electoral register at random. Better still use modern communications media to select a new panel for each vote - again by lottery and at random.

We will still need an executive - directly elected rather than moderated through the corrupt filter of the dying political parties. But decision making through panels selected by lot is fairer more responsive, less open to corrupt influence and returns us to the citizen democracy we have lost with the decay of political parties as social institutions.

Give people a real role - or the prospect of such a role - and they will wake up, stop being honest idiots and bring in a new more open, participatory age of government.

Worth a try?