Councils get in a hubble-bubble over hookahs

The Local Government Association is in a funk about shisha bars:

‘Smoke-free laws are not offering strong enough punishments to deter irresponsible shisha bar owners who are making lucrative profits, which means councils often need to carry out costly and lengthy investigations to take action against the same bar over and over again.’

Let's piggle away at this one a bit. There's a market for people who want to go to a bar and smoke shisha (hookahs, hubble-bubble pipes for those who don't know about them - interesting that the Arab word, shisha, has come to be most common even among South Asian populations). And, because there are people who want to smoke said hubble-bubble pipes, unscrupulous business owners provide them and make "lucrative" profits.

Seems to me that the problem here isn't the unscrupulousness of owners or the lack of council powers - it's the smoking ban. There is no justification at all for banning people from voluntarily going into a private space to consume a legal drug. Councils are frothing away at this because the bars have priced in the risk of a fine and therefore councils want more powers, no doubt up to and including arrest and imprisonment, to deal with all this.

When we're looking at things that Council's really shouldn't be bothering about, grown men and women smoking shisha in a comfortable bar is up there near the top of the list. What's worse is that these licensing numpties don't understand why such places end up run by ne'er do wells. It's because of that smoking ban again. Organised criminals have always walked in lockstep with the puritans - one lot gets to cash in while the others get to pretend they're stopping "rogues" and protecting the public from terrible and sinful activities.

If you relax the smoking ban - perhaps just to allow cigars clubs, shisha bars and smoking rooms - then nearly all of this dastardly criminality will go away.

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Coding is either an everyday basic skill or an elite profession - it can't be both

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Let's start by mentioning that I can't write code - indeed I would know where to start. But I know it is important and that the ability to construct computer programmes will be central to the future of civilisation. So I am sympathetic to those who believe that more people - perhaps everybody - should be given the basics of coding:

We at the Year of Code are going to help change that. The new computing curriculum starts this September, and it puts coding at the heart of IT education. Coding is the art of telling a computer how to perform complex tasks. Once you know how to code, you can create virtual worlds within the computer where the only limit on what is possible is your imagination. We want to put this power into the hands and hearts of every child in Britain.

I applaud this initiative - it liberates coding from being the domain of specially trained folk and results in a broader understanding of how we can make the computing tools around us work for us.  However there's a dilemma - the code being written is giving instructions to important things like vehicles, heating systems and the delivery of medication. We want it to work.

So there's a bunch of people who want to control who can (and cannot) be allowed to write code:

Frailey suggests that software engineers should be required to demonstrate a certain level of expertise before offering their services to the public, just like professionals in disciplines like medicine and law.

Indeed some 30 states in the USA now require software engineers to take (and pass) a licencing examination before they can work on projects that "affect public safety". It's pretty simple to see that such a definition has the capacity to cover almost everything that involves programming computers and especially the programming of tools in the so-called "internet of things".

We have two different pressures - one the support among professional code-writers for licencing and the other a movement to democratize coding by giving the skills to everyone. It is difficult to encompass both things - coding is either a basic skill that everyone can use or it's a highly sophisticated activity akin to heart surgery requiring specially licenced individuals. In the latter case, it is in the interests of the licence issuer and the person licenced to extend the requirement beyond high risk areas (programming the computer that will aid in the heart surgery, for example) to encompass a much wider range of activities. Programming computers, rather than being a craft skill, becomes a licenced 'engineering' function, the very opposite of the world envisaged by the people at Year of Code.

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How that teacher licensing might work out. A lesson from road transport...

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Dick Puddlecote usually writes about personal choice and the curse of nannying fussbucketry but every now and then he drops one in about his day job running a transport business.

Here he writes about the impact of requiring re-licensing every few years for HGV and PSV drivers:

Our experience - and we offered to pay for the courses - was that our best drivers said "enough of this shit" and quit the game. Not just any old drivers either, it was mostly the most experienced older drivers who decided that it was a ridiculous idea, and that there was no way they were letting some snotty-nosed professional training adviser tell them how to do a job they'd performed brilliantly for decades.

Dick goes on to confirm that, right across the industry, the impact of the new rules was:

...a loss of around 20% of drivers across the board.

Is there any reason to suppose that the impact of a "teacher's license" would be any different? That, far from it being the worst teachers who are weeded out, the effect will be for good teachers who can either retire or do something else (work in a private school or go to Australia to think of two examples) to leave? As Dick concludes:

Do we want kids to be trained by experienced older professionals with decades of knowledge and skills to be passed on to colleagues, or should Labour be allowed to drive them out of the job by way of death by a thousand insults to their intelligence?

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How the police waste resources...and then blame the public

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Shock, horror, scandal! One drunk takes 17 - yes, folks one seven, seventeen - coppers to respond. Now leaving aside that I don't believe a word of it, what a waste of resources. This is today's instalment of Chief Constable Adrian Lee's tinpot fascist campaign against people having a good time.

Four policemen to arrest one drunk - two in a patrol car! Aren't the police patrolling the town centre anyway? What this report tells us is that policing in England is a bureaucratic mess and that, under the leadership of men like Mr Lee, the service couldn't manage its way out of a wet paper bag.

Apparently police resources would be better deployed elsewhere:

And those resources would be put to much better use in local communities rather than being called into town centres every weekend to deal with people who wouldn't cause problems if they hadn't consumed so much alcohol

I've really no idea what those "resources" would be doing in "local communities" at midnight on a Friday other that sitting about drinking tea or pointlessly patrolling empty streets. I guess they could use the time to keep up with the paperwork that people like Mr Lee create for them?

Drunken assault is anti-social. But then so is much of the rest of the things police deal with - burglary to feed a drug habit is anti-social, shoplifting is anti-social. In truth all crime is anti-social, the police spend most of their time dealing with people who, for whatever reason, cause problems. It's why we have them, it's what we pay Mr Lee and others to do.

It seems however that, in Mr Lee's world, the problem is with the public not the incompetence of police systems.

Oh and while we're about this - there is no such thing as "24 hour drinking" but since the liberalising of licensing laws alcohol consumption has fallen. Every single year and the biggest fall is amongst the young - the very people Mr Lee blames for the police's bureaucratic uselessness.

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An interesting point about the licensing of private landlords:

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An idea that is (sort of) national policy for the Labour Party. Here's Ben Reeve-Lewis (not exactly a natural pal of rapacious private rental sector (PRS) landlords):

...if you go down the strict, blanket licensing route, you can forget building a partnership approach with the PRS community.

Whereas the social lettings agency route is based on building bridges and understanding, the licensing approach is a blunt tool that I would argue damages more than it helps...

Councils need PRS landlords more than they need councils and to entice them over we need to offer a hell of a package that will work for the PRS community.  And in the working of it, councils will find it easier to police what is going on.

Ben goes on to say that the selective licensing approach (which we have - to Bradford's leadership's credit - twice voted down at full council) damages the relationship between the PRS and Councils to the detriment of the market and one assumes the tenants.

Ben concludes by despairing at the killing off of partnership approaches to lettings and the impact of the licensing approach championed by Newham Council:

The damage caused to schemes that are trying to build bridges and work with the PRS carries further than the borough boundaries of Newham and confirms endemic fears of many in the landlord community that councils are simply looking on the PRS as a huge cash cow.

Battle lines are beginning to get drawn and personally, I predict a civil war between town halls and the PRS if blanket licensing becomes the idea virus that it is threatening to become.

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Brandon Lewis: celebrating the pub...but doing little to help

Brandon Lewis MP and Minister writes in Conservative Home about the pub:

My new year's resolution is to make the Great British pub the hub of a resurgent economy.

Like most small businesses, life for the local hasn't been easy in recent times. Some have been forced to close down, others have been hit hard by rowdy rabble rowsers.

Cheers Brandon - thanks for the enthusiasm. But let's look at the facts - pubs are still closing, the government has launched a new round of attacks on drinking. Not just minimum pricing, not just failing to do anything about the beer duty escalator but a new licensing regime that gives 'health authorities' the chance to stop the granting of licenses.

And while Brandon crows about supporting publicans as 'entrepreneurs', he fails even to mention the one thing that has done the most damage to the pub - that smoking ban. Thousands of people now stop at home or go round their neighbours with a bottle or some cans rather than visit the pub - simply because it means they can smoke.

Despite Brandon's false bonhomie about the pub, I'm prepared to bet that there will be fewer pubs at the end of 2013 than there are open today. And that the government's anti-alcohol strategy - if imposed - will only make matters worse.

Or maybe this will be the pub's salvation:

...the ideal place to grab a morning coffee break, with over 3 million cups of coffee sold in a year.

Yes, Brandon - that will work!

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Nannying Fussbucket of the week: Yes it's Cllr Audrey Lewis & Westminster Council again!

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All the papers are running this story - the pub that has been told to serve drinks more slowly or lose its license. Hidden in the detail of this story is the real reason for the problem:

“We have lots of people drinking outside and we know Westminster wants to clamp down on that..."

Now we're getting somewhere at last. It's not the efficient service that's the problem, it's that some people are drinking outside. How very dare they! Anti-social behaviour. Setting a bad example! It must be stopped! The licensing committee will end this ghastly behaviour. Even when:

The pub is on a cobbled mews and is only open weekdays. Mrs Bird added: “We have never had any complaints from residents about noise, there’s no problem with violence - we’re just a popular local pub.”

So it's causing no bother but Cllr Lewis and her Westminster Council killjoys - the one's who pulled the plug on The Boss and Macca - will still stop it. 'Cos of the rules, you know!

Nannying fussbuckets.

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Nannying Fussbucket of the Week: Cllr Audrey Lewis

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The woman who pulled the plug on The Boss rather than give him ten more minutes speaks:

I can understand the disappointment of fans when the Springsteen and McCartney duo came to a rather un rock'n'roll-like end. However the licensing rules are ultimately not there to kill the party, but to go some way to discharge the legal responsibility we also have to consider.

We make up some rules and, by jingo, we're going to enforce those rules - to the second - regardless of how many folk's pleasure we spoil as a result. Those licensing rules really are, absolutely and specifically, design to 'kill the party' and that's just what they did. To no-one's benefit.

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Come on you New Puritans, lighten up and let people live a little?

The world now knows just how annoyingly officious British authorities have become:

E-Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt also took to Twitter to express his outrage. He said the stars had planned a final encore number before the sound was cut off.

The 61-year-old said: 'One of the great gigs ever in my opinion. But seriously, when did England become a police state? Is there just too much fun in the world? We would have been off by 11 if we'd done one more. On a Saturday night! Who were we disturbing?

This was a big deal but we’re pointing the finger at the wrong target. The truth is that, had Westminster Council allowed the event to run even a minute past the allotted finish time – the licence – that killjoy with a stopwatch somewhere within earshot of Hyde Park would have been on to them threatening action.

We have become the antithesis of ‘live and let live’, a nation of nosey parkers, busybodies and fussbuckets. Too many people are ready to point out every last minute infringement – just so long as it’s done safely by ringing up (or these days e-mailing) the authorities.

We seem unable to allow other people to have a modicum of pleasure. Youngsters making some noise in the town square after a good night? Binge drinking – get it stopped! Introduce curfews, ban outside drinking – whatever it takes get them away from where they might (just might) offend our ears or eyes.

A karaoke night at the local round the corner on a warm summer night (oh, for one of those) – a few folk stray outside for a smoke or perhaps a snog. And we’re on to the authorities about the pub’s license the next day. How dare these people enjoy themselves in my presence?

Or the wedding party at the club – good times, dads dancing, uncles getting a little drunk and cousins simpering over the best man. And children running around getting under everyone’s feet, wallowing in the excitement of staying up late. Nine o’clock arrives and our busybody is complaining - the licence says no children after 9pm.

Everywhere I look, I see fun being spoiled by our inability to let others live a little. We seem unable to tolerate a few minutes inconvenience so as to allow others to celebrate. We’ve forgotten that urban places – and we most of us live in urban places – are sometimes noisy. And we seem to believe that licensing – the exercise of mostly pointless control – is the way to proceed.

I recall, on one of those warm summer evenings, sitting outside a nice bar on Street Lane in Leeds only to be ushered inside at eleven “because of the licence”. So fifteen or so (anything but young) people dutifully traipsed inside, finished our drinks and then went home. Our pleasure was curtailed because some official in that big wedding cake building in the middle of Leeds, backed up by councillors and urged on by fussbuckets had decreed that drinking outside a quiet bar in the posh northern suburbs of the city represents the precursor to drunken violence, mayhem and chaos (and might be a little noisy).

Can’t we arrive at a place where we no longer have the officious enforcement of arbitrary time restrictions and move instead to a place where we agree reasonable behaviour? A world where every now and then it’s OK for a few (hopefully well-behaved) children to remain after nine? Where a group of no longer young folk can sit outside a bar after eleven on a warm evening (when they’re doing no-one any harm)?

And where thousands of people who’ve paid a lot of money to watch a concert (and aren’t about to riot) get to see the full set because someone’s seen sense and allowed the band a little bit of leeway on finishing time.

But I guess this won’t happen. It seems the new Puritans have won. And we are a worse nation for it.

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About that flying car...

It was one of those things they promised us boys back in 1971 (or whenever it was when we commenced dreaming about the future) and we haven't got them. Not because they are technically impossible but because the government doesn't want us to have them - we're not to be trusted with such things are we!

Commercial interests are not allowed to fly overhead. Nor most local governments. Hobbyists can, if they keep their drones under 400 feet. And the skies will eventually open up to everyone. "Ironically, my 9-year-old can fly drones, but the police department can't." Anderson says. 

The problem is that our airspace is governed by a policy called sense-and-avoid. Flying vehicle control systems -- be they people or computers -- are ultimately responsible for avoiding other vehicles.

It's all about licensing and not about technology. Some think we should be scared:
 

New documents shed light on which government agencies are experimenting with the domestic use of unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones.

Drone use isn't restricted to Homeland Security, the FBI, and the Air Force. Legal authorization to fly drones has also been extended to police departments including ones in Herington, Kan., (population 2,526) and Gadsden, Ala., (which touts the nearby Foggy Hollow Bluegrass Gatherin' on its town Web site). 

But if we are granted use (and hobbyists can already fly drones) it's only a short hop from an unmanned remote controlled helicopter to something that the Jetsons would flit about in. So if we want to kick start the economy - and we surely do - wouldn't allowing manned aircars be just the ticket? Bring it on I say!

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Well he is a hairdresser...

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It's tough being a Tory sometimes. Especially when the party has people who want to license anything that moves. Here's David Morris, MP for Morecambe & Lunesdale and former hairdresser:

Here we are in the worst financial crisis since the 1930s and this MP wants regulation haircuts! Away with you.

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Why on earth has it got anything to do with the Council?

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I mean...

The decision of a Leicestershire council to potentially limit house-to-house collections to campaigns which return at least 70 per cent of income to charity has been praised by the Charity Retail Association but treated with caution by the Institute of Fundraising.

Why? When did we start licensing the innocent business of collecting clothes door-to-door? And for what value, reason or purpose is this done? I can see none at all.

It's just red tape - scrap it.

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