In which multi-millionaire, Jamie Oliver complains about losing public funding

Yes folks, the very rich celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver is moaning about local councils withdrawing funding for his Jaimie's Ministry of Food projects in Bradford and Rotherham:

The 42-year-old chef maintains projects he set up in cities and towns, including Bradford and Rotherham, were ultimately to address Britain’s obesity crisis, improve nutrition and encourage healthy meals for the younger generation, but added they were difficult to implement because of an “erratic” approach to funding from the public sector.

Now, leaving aside whether these projects actually do any good, if Oliver is so keen to promote his particular brand of fussbucketry, why on earth doesn't he dip into his own substantial bank account to do so? Why expect the council tax payers of Bradford to cough up?

.....

The 42-year-old chef maintains projects he set up in cities and towns, including Bradford and Rotherham, were ultimately to address Britain’s obesity crisis, improve nutrition and encourage healthy meals for the younger generation, but added they were difficult to implement because of an “erratic” approach to funding from the public sector.

Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/chef-oliver-says-support-for-his-food-projects-was-erratic-1-8833910

Inconvenient truths - public funding of science doesn't promote economic growth

****

I'm in favour of science. Mostly for the "cor, wow" factor and because what scientists do at the far boundaries of our knowledge is fantastic. I'm even in favour of some of our taxes being spent on that science. But not because it helps in any way towards the growth in our economy.

In 2003, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development published a paper on the “sources of economic growth in OECD countries” between 1971 and 1998 and found, to its surprise, that whereas privately funded research and development stimulated economic growth, publicly funded research had no economic impact whatsoever. None. This earthshaking result has never been challenged or debunked. It is so inconvenient to the argument that science needs public funding that it is ignored.

When I did my masters degree, I looked at this stuff and the evidence is pretty clear - investment in research and development by firms is very effective in drive economic growth whereas there's no link between said growth and investment in research and development by governments or government agencies. Rather than the preferred university-led approach to research we need to look at firm-led approaches. Here's what I found:

There is evidence to suggest that university-led innovation strategies focusing on collaboration and the spinning off of businesses from HEIs leads to a misplaced focus on scientific research rather than business growth (Jones 1995, Frenz & Oughton 2005). Perhaps the most effective way to generate effective innovation at the level of the firm (where it has a direct impact on economic performance) is to reduce the barriers to innovation. The biggest of these barriers is cost and econometric models suggest that reducing innovation costs is more effective that investing in R&D or building innovation networks and systems (Martin 1999).

It won't happen, of course, because the system is controlled by universities and the friends of universities.

....

Proposing the Cullingworth Police Force

***

The wonderful Wat Tyler reports that the average household coughs up £800 to pay for the police that they seldom see except on the telly.

There are around 1,000 households in Cullingworth - and we're a pretty average place. That's £800,000 for a mostly non-existant police service.

I reckon we could have three or four officers, give them a cop shop, a car, computers and mobile phones - just for Cullingworth - out of that money. And have some change.

And what do we get? A share in a couple of PCSOs and occasional visits from the PC who covers 9 villages and a small town.

....