In which I defend the indefensible...

I’ve rather held off from writing this post. Partly because right now lending is a touchy subject and partly because I don’t want people to see me as an advocate of rapacious down-market lenders.

But here it is...

Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow has been campaigning loudly and effectively for new regulations around doorstep and payday lending:

A cross-party group of MPs has secured a vote on the principle of introducing caps on the total costs of credit for British consumers, following good practice across the Americas and Europe. We have the backing of a wide range of consumer groups, charities, trade unions and religious groups, who recognise that every day these rates go unchallenged, debt and poverty get worse. We also have the support of many Tory and Liberal Democrat backbenchers.

All good stuff. But there’s a problem – not just the impact that hobbling Provident Financial would have on the economy of Bradford (where it is headquartered and where it will employ approaching 1000 people) but a problem for the very people Ms Creasy wishes to help.

What Ms Creasy proposes is a cap on interest rates and associated fees. Seems straightforward until you consider what the effect of such a cap will be. By capping interest rates you will reduce the supply of credit to riskier groups (which tend to be poorer groups) – the area the doorstep lenders won’t touch will get bigger and the credit checking will get tougher. People who can get a short term loan now would not be able to get a short term loan if Ms Creasy’s bill became law.

Again this is fine. Truth is that many of these people shouldn’t be borrowing money given their financial status. But what we know is that they do want to borrow money, which leaves them with two routes – pawn shops or the bloke in the nice suit who’ll agree to help “just this once”.  You know him – he’s the illegal loan shark who has been forced right to the margins by the liberalised credit regime we enjoy. Right now, these loan sharks aren’t that common (although they’re on every estate) because Wonga and other down market lenders have taken their market.

And the likes of Wonga are licensed, regulated and subject to the law – let me tell you that the bloke in the nice suit isn’t and he will use force to get his money.

The effect of an interest cap will be to increase illegal loan sharking – it really is as simple as that. I know it sounds good to reduce those shocking interest rates we see on ads, to control this “legal loansharking” as the campaigners have dubbed it, but it will have negative consequences for too many people – the very people Stella Creasy wants to help.

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Bah, humbug!

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The teachers union, NAS/UWT are having a Christmas 'go slow':

Members of NASUWT are to be ordered not to put up festive decorations or help produce Nativity plays and carol concerts in a dispute which could go on for months.

Frankly, how pathetic can you get. Also those children looking forward to the festive season, excited at the prospect of giving and receiving and Miss says:

"Sorry, Children. No tinsel, no nativity play, no party on the last day. I'm not allowed to help with these becasue all the teachers are cross with a man down in London."

Dreadful. Almost unforgivable.

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When will journalists start looking at the evidence?

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Every now and then a ray of hope breaks through the dour, New Puritan gloom. For a fleeting moment I feel a little progress towards freedom is made, I read something that makes me think the masters are listening to ordinary people. Sometimes I even hope that people will take note of some real evidence before launching into another promotional story for the Church of Public Health.

And then I read this in my local newspaper:

Mouth cancer patients spoke out yesterday to warn others of the dangers of smoking and using smokeless tobacco.

All well and good except for one small thing – much available evidence suggests there is no strong link between the use of smokeless tobacco and oral cancers. OK, I hear you say, was the journalist aware of this? She was because I had provided her with this:

Snus (Swedish soft snuff) use was independently associated with increased risk of pancreatic cancer (relative risk for ever-users of snus 2.0; 95% CI 1.2-3.3, compared with never-users of any tobacco), but was unrelated to incidence of oral (0.8, 95% CI 0.4-1.7) and lung cancer (0.8, 0.5-1.3).

Yet the opportunity to present an informative, balanced report on mouth cancer was spurned in favour of yet another “tobacco is evil” presentation courtesy of the Church of Public Health.

I shall continue to provide information setting out real evidence rather than the emotive pseudo-evidence from the “health chiefs” – one day my local paper might just take some notice.

I live in hope.

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Myth...

We make a great deal of myth and myth-making. But only in condemnation, in the denial of myth.

Yet myth is more important than we think. It guides us more than we ever admit. And, it is that thing making us human, fallible and wrong:

I would that I might with the minstrels sing
and stir the unseen with a throbbing string.
I would be with the mariners of the deep
that cut their slender planks on mountains steep
and voyage upon a vague and wandering quest,
for some have passed beyond the fabled West.
I would with the beleaguered fools be told,
that keep an inner fastness where their gold,
impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring
to mint in image blurred of distant king,
or in fantastic banners weave the sheen
heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.

We dismiss myth at our peril, for there is truth in it. A deeper truth about ourselves maybe, a truth of longing, of desperation for something finer, but still a truth. By all means stir the air with contending facts, argue away about percentages of this and ratios of that. I will join you knowing, as you know too, that beneath it all lie our culture’s myths – the myths of trade, the legends of business and the stories of England.

To lose all this in some fit of argued rationality would be to lose something grand. It would be to lose the myths that define us, that tell us who we are:

He sees no stars who does not see them first
of living silver made that sudden burst
to flame like flowers beneath an ancient song,
whose very echo after-music long
has since pursued. There is no firmament,
only a void, unless a jewelled tent
myth-woven and elf-pattened; and no earth,
unless the mother's womb whence all have birth.

The sense of wonderment that Tolkein captures here is intended -absolutely - as a defence of myth-making. Its says that without myth, our exploration ceases, the "truth" is settled and man dies.

So let's hear it for myth...

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So when will universities cotton on then?

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Technology is changing how we learn:

Live online learning technologies - such as virtual meetings and classrooms, and video-conferencing - are becoming increasingly popular, with more than three-quarters of employers using them in 2011.

This is according to the benchmark study carried out by learning-technology provider Towards Maturity, which found that e-learning courses were the most popular learning technology this year, used by 80% of employers.

So when will universities start using these methods?

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Forza La Tecnocrazia?

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The new Prime Minister of Italy remarks:

The absence of political personalities in the government will help rather than hinder a solid base of support for the government in the parliament and political parties because it will remove one ground for disagreement

It worries me - as does this:

He added that he had received “many signals of encouragement from our European partners and the international world,” for the new administration.

And we should take note of this comment - from a real, elected politician:

“We salute the Franco-German directorate before it officially takes control of the country...Maybe they'll let us speak Italian for a bit longer but the decisions are going to be taken elsewhere."

Forza La Tecnocrazia!

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This might be good news...

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...but I'm not holding my breath:

The government has disbanded its expert advisory group on obesity. The group advised on policy as well as its implementation and evaluation. The Department of Health said new advisory arrangements were being brought in for obesity.

It seems there will be:

...a new National Ambition Review Group on obesity, which will bring together key partners and experts from the academic and scientific field.

Sounds like Lansley is good to his word about involving the food industry - probably a good thing.

But then again, we don't actually have an "obesity crisis"!

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