Upon returning to London after Christmas, I was greeted with the rather un-festive news that there had been a fatal stabbing across the road from my local pub, quite literally metres away from Charing Cross Police station and Trafalgar Square. Just after 7am, a homeless man had been killed outside the day centre right around the time they serve breakfast.
The problem of rough sleeping in central London has got to endemic proportions - with one in 25 of the Westminster population being homeless - residents will tell you, it was only a matter of time before someone was killed like this. Lining every street around the central London area are hundreds, if not thousands, of rough sleepers; almost all have mental health and addiction problems, there are constant fights, and many residents have had to call ambulances to treat overdosed addicts on our doorsteps. Whilst there is much talk of the housing crisis in London - with rising rents and property prices crippling those on low (and even medium) wages - by the time someone is sleeping rough on the streets in the centre of London, they need more help than just a house.
Imagine for a minute, you were made homeless: if you did not have the opportunity to stay with friends or family, had no recourse for state assistance and nowhere indoors to sleep, what would you do? Would your choice be to hide in a quiet park, or sleep in the alleyway next to the busiest streets in the country? Keep a low profile and try get back some sense of normality, or sit on a street corner in Soho begging for change?
Let's be honest here - for someone to be on the streets in central London for months or even years, it's because their addictions and/or violent behaviour has got them kicked out of every hostel and they get more money for drugs begging to tourists - not just because 'houses cost to much'. The presence of so many rough sleepers on the streets of central London represent more than just a failure of housing - there is a deeper failure of mental health and social services that have allowed so many to end up addicted to drugs and sleeping on the streets. Rather than more hostel beds & council blocks, we need more beds in rehab and mental health facilities, and assistive accommodation that helps treat people's problems rather than just putting a roof over their head; being practical, this will never be located in central London.
The mayor's office has come under some scrutiny for the appointment of Amy Lame to the new position of Night Czar, and the creation of the additional job Chair of the Nighttime Commission after the applications (and interviews) had finished. I spent a good portion of my Wednesday morning watching the GLA Oversight Committee grill the hiring committee about the process of appointing the Night Czar, which (as expected) was a travesty. You can check out the associated documents here or watch the meeting here.
What is a Night Czar anyway?
Initially, the role of Night Czar was to work with key stakeholders to develop "a vision for London as a 24 hour city", a strategy for implementation, and a best practice guide for councils - as well as overseeing research into the nighttime economy and supporting existing projects - chairing the Nighttime Commission, working 2.5 days per week, for a £35,000 salary.
Indeed, this was the job description until after the interview process - when it was decided that the role was 'too large for one person' and, should instead, be spilt into the Night Czar and the Chair of the Nighttime Commission. The former is to develop the vision, the latter to work with the councils - now we have two 2.5 day/week £35k/year roles, up from none under Boris.
From Wednesday's meeting, the Czar will be spending the next 6 months developing a "vision" for 24 hour London, and the remainder of her 12 month contract developing a strategy, maybe commissioning a few bits of research along the way. It seems that the Czar is mostly expected to go around and meet with international counterparts to 'learn best practice' and be a nice media figure to keep Londoners happy (and make it look like Mayor Khan is improving things)
Have the Mayor's office or the Nighttime Commission thought of any specific goals they want the Czar to achieve? Any measurable targets? Any areas of focus?
No. They're not even sure what budget will be allocated to the role.
How did they choose who got the job?
The role was first announced back on the 18th of August, just a week after the closure of iconic nightclub Fabric, fuelling publicity for applications; overall 189 were received, an "unprecedented" and "exceptional" number according to HR. Prior to the announcement of applications, the Mayor's team had also discussed people they wanted (and would encourage) to apply for the role - it was not confirmed if Ms. Lame was on this list, but I suspect she was. From the applicants, 38 were put on the long-list, and 9 interviewed - with interviewers admitting they suspected the journalists applying only did so for the story, not because they wanted the job. Of those interviewed, most of the notes include recommendations and support from key stakeholders and business leaders and extensive knowledge of licensing laws and working with councils; Ms. Lame's interview notes, in comparison, suggest the interviewers were more impressed by the fact she is a queer activist celebrity.
It was only after the interview process that the hiring team, in consultation with the Mayor's office and legal advisors, decided to split the role - not because they decided the amount of work had doubled, but because they decided it was actually two roles. Incidentally, the only two people scored above 25 by the Deputy Mayor at interview were the Night Czar herself, and whoever will be announced as Chair of the Nighttime Commission. These were also the only two interviewees informed of the change in job role of Czar, and the creation of the Chair's position.
Is it common for a job role to be changed so much after interview without the application process being rerun? No, in fact, the hiring team cannot name another instance where this has happened.
Why is Amy Lame a controversial choice?
Is the fact she's payed through her company (rather than being a direct employee) as big an issue as implied by the media? To me, no, not really. It's become so common to do in London that no-one really cares. I would like to know who her accountant is though, because I would also like to pay no tax (presumably through clever legal avoidance schemes).
She's not a fan of Conservatives - calling them "Tory scum" and "cunts" amongst other insults and threats of mild violence, on Twitter. This is problematic, when many of London's councils she is expected to work with are run by the Conservatives; indeed she wrote to them apologising for her comments and assuring them of her desire to work together - but only after they had written to her with their concerns. The Mayor's office, prompted by the GLA Oversight Committee, has now asked her to remove the tweets - although she continues to like posts made by others in support of her sentiment. Did they know about this before hiring her? Yes and no - she told them at interview that there may be controversial statements due to her work as an activist, but the Mayor's team never bothered to google her to find out what those were...
Aside from her dislike of right-wing political views, Ms. Lame seems to have little industry experience, aside from performing queer comedy and running a gay night at a pub. I'm sure these were entirely successful ventures (although her company has registered a loss for the past 7 years), but there is much more to London's nighttime economy than gay clubs. It seems that there were several well respected industry figures interviewed, and I hope that Ms. Lame will work closely and take onboard the views and ideas of the wider nighttime community.
...but we really need to reconsider what counts as a university and what counts as a degree.
With another round of protests over university fees, from the National Union of Students, this weekend, it is clear that the issue of tuition fees is far from over. Whilst students want free eduction, the costs of university must be payed by someone - and if university education is indeed of benefit to wider society it seems reasonable that this be covered by the taxpayer. Unfortunately, with many graduates failing to find skilled or well paid employment, it seems that much university education has no benefit to wider society.
When Tony Blair said that 50% of school leavers should go onto university, he neglected to consider the fact that far fewer than 50% of available jobs are for graduates. This has led to a proliferation of soft degrees, in subjects that would have had no place in education 15 years ago, accepting students with low academic ability - resulting in graduates who may have paper qualifications (along with a mountain of debt) but still fail to find meaningful employment. Surely these young people would be better served by schemes to help them into employment and in-work training at 18, allowing them to start earning a wage (rather than accumulating debt) and gain demonstrable skills valuable to employers and industry (instead of a piece of paper providing limited assurances of subject knowledge).
I don't think the taxpayer should cover the cost of someone with two C-grade A-levels to study Event Management for 3 years - when it seems obvious that one could gain better knowledge of managing events by working in the industry for 3 years. Indeed, it appears that many of these vocational degrees simply take the cost of staff training away from companies, and push it onto future employees - if all current undergraduate degrees were 'free', this cost would be pushed onto the taxpayer instead.
Some high-skilled vocational subjects - such as law, medicine or dentistry - cannot be taught entirely on the job. With healthcare graduates providing a clear, long-term, benefit to wider society - and fierce competition for places, ensuring only the best can study - it makes sense to subsidise medical education. For law, this is broadly similar as lawyers work partly in the public, and partly in the private interest - due to the huge profits made by private law firms, it seems reasonable for private industry to contribute to the education of future lawyers, as they currently do through post-graduate education in the form of bar schools - although the costs could be better split between government and industry.
Traditional university subject study, reserved for the most academically qualified, has never served solely to provide an in-depth knowledge of the subject - university education more importantly develops critical thinking skills that prove invaluable outside of academic study in high-skilled and managerial roles. The uncomfortable truth is that only a minority of school-leavers possess the aptitude to develop such skills - at least through the blunt instruments of essays and exams in university education. Lowering the quality of undergraduate education, to accommodate the less academically able, only devalues the achievements of the few who are - and forces them to further study, and further debt, to distinguish themselves from the rabble.
If university education returned to the preserve of only the best and the brightest - with most school leavers helped by in-work training and apprenticeships - I'd be more than happy for university to be free for students.
Lord Kerr has been coming under criticism for calling the general public stupid; superficially this often appears true, but to anyone bothering to look, it is obvious that this is a failing of the British education system rather than a lack of potential.
As case in point, I look to Shakespeare - whilst high school pupils study a different play each year, getting them to engage with the literature has become ever more difficult. To try and increase engagement and understanding, liberals have even produced emoji game versions of the texts - with the hope millennials are shallow enough to be fascinated by this. Unfortunately, simply shoehorning small pictures into the texts will do nothing to increase understanding.
I'm still optimistic enough to believe that most millennials, and even (hopefully) generation Z, are not actually stupid - but when it comes to understanding and appreciating historical literature a knowledge of the cultural background of the texts is essential, but fundamentally lacking in our education system. Slowly but surely, education and discussion of our island's history, philosophy and culture has been eroded; without knowledge of such reference points, how can pupils be expected to gain a depth of understanding?
Whilst Britain may have become a mostly secular society, historically Christianity was a central tenant of British thinking and culture, and still forms the basis of our legal and moral codes - a fact that seems to have been forgotten in the push for multiculturalism. Even when reading more modern texts, such as Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia - indeed most British literature up to the mid-20th century - it would be impossible to recognise or appreciate the philosophical themes without a reasonable working knowledge of the Bible. With little to no education in the development of Christian philosophy through the Middle Ages and Reformation, we cannot expect teenagers to appreciate Shakespeare, nor blame them for being stupid when they leave school.
The short-sighted methods of teaching Shakespeare are indicative of the problems with the British education system at large. Until it can be fixed, Lord Kerr will continue to have good reason to call us stupid.
If you read the BBC before going to work this morning, you might think that the government is leaking like the DNC, and has no plan for Brexit. If you checked the news later, maybe you found out it's more accurate to say 'Deloitte thinks the government has no plan for Brexit, and wants them to hire lots of Deloitte's consultants to fix this'. They might very well be correct - the British government has woefully bad track record when it comes to planning most things - but the BBC's biased reporting of the issues is the real problem.
Here's their article at 8am referring to the source of hysteria as "the leaked Cabinet Office memo - written by an un-named consultant and entitled "Brexit Update" of 7 November". By 1:30pm, they had clarified that "a spokesman said the "unsolicited document" came from an external accountancy firm and had "no authority"". Guido properly clears things up, and lets us know this accountancy firm was Deloitte - presumably letting Mrs. May et.al. know they have plenty of six-figure-salaried consultants at hand to help the government sort out the mess created by the referendum.
Do you think that BBC (and Times) journalists didn't know the memo wasn't from the Cabinet Office, as they suggested, just sent to them? Looking at the current political climate, I'm sure a lot of people are writing to the Cabinet to let them know they don't think the government knows what it's doing. We all know they don't know what they are doing.
Whilst the source of this hysteria, The Times, can somehow still find readers to voluntarily pay for its so-called journalism, it is the British public in general paying for such disingenuous reporting from the BBC. Standards of journalism have fallen so low there that it is an insult for them to receive public money - when taxpayer funding dries up, I wish the BBC journalists luck in finding new positions...
Poor Jeremy doesn't quite know how to feel about Trump's victory - should he be happy the Americans voted against the system, or angry they didn't get Bernie? He does think he knows how to fix Britain - although at some point he seems to have forgotten that, luckily, most people are intelligent enough to see through the false promises of socialism.
Corbyn on Trump
"Trump blamed Muslims, Mexicans, women... anyone he could think of... except corporate America"
If you're happy to conflate all Muslims with Islamic extremists, all Mexicans with illegal immigrants, and all women with Hillary Clinton, maybe that statement is half believable. I am not. Nor am I prepared to take anything Corbyn or the BBC say about Trump seriously.
Listening to Trump during his campaign, he seemed mostly to blame US problems on the corrupt government and the loopholes it provided to corporate America. Trump's rhetoric thus far has been a plan to 'drain the swamp' in Washington DC, and close the tax loopholes he knows so well - because he used them - to repatriate profits from US companies back to the US. Whether he can achieve this moving forward waits to be seen...
Corbyn fixes the UK economy
"We have to invest in new industry... we need an investment agenda"
Investing government money, obviously, not dirty corporate money - but who's money Mr. Corbyn? We can all agree that there is a dearth of industry and jobs in much of the UK, particularly in the north - but I can see no evidence that throwing taxpayers money at the problem will fix it.
To grow new jobs and industry I would rather government policy provided stability, opportunity and reward for people to set up new businesses with private investment, than tried to take on all these roles itself. Putting the government into the role of investor for new businesses creates two major problems in my mind:
It removes the incentive of private individuals to invest in new business and business growth - further consolidating wealth in the hands of those who already have it, as they have no incentive to invest it in new business. Invariably, new businesses will go first to government for investment, leaving only those with the weakest or most risky plans to ask for private investment - which will not be forthcoming. Individuals tend to be a lot more cautious about investing their own money than the state is when spending the taxpayer's; when private money is used for investment there is much more stringent judgement, ensuring only the better plans get funded. The number of new businesses needs to increase to grow the economy, but they can only grow the economy and create jobs if they are successful. Looking at the government's record, I don't trust them to invest wisely.
It further increases dependance on the state. Already many in low paid jobs are reliant on the state to subsidise housing and utility bills, and all but the wealthiest rely on the state for schooling and healthcare. One of the driving factors for many entrepreneurs, however, is a desire to be more self-reliant - in my mind, putting more state bureaucracy in the process of starting a business only serves to disincentivise this spirit, and adds to the state's burden in managing the growth and stability of the economy. In a time where governments have much to blame for our current economic problems, does it really seem wise to give them even more control over it? When government budgets are already at breaking point, with much being spent on welfare, how can encouraging further reliance of state funding individuals (instead of encouraging individuals funding themselves) solve financial problems?
Corbyn fixes trade and immigration
"Immigration will be lower when we deal with wage undercutting and exploitation"
In Comrade Corbyn's socialist Britain, our shiny new post-Brexit trade deals wont be just about trade, they have to ensure that everything sold in the UK is produced under the same standards as the UK. Less people will want to come here because their countries will be nicer; we'll conveniently neglect to mention that our country will be worse. In one trade policy, we remove immigration push and pull factors - and once we've done that, we don't need borders or an immigration policy, because obviously no-one will want to come to the UK.
As of now, we import a lot of cheap products from countries where labour and environmental standards are lower. People in the UK still struggle to afford these products. How then, can Mr. Corbyn not have the foresight to see that artificially raising standards abroad will increase the cost of products, to the point where British people cannot afford them?
I say artificially raising standards abroad, as it seems we would have two trade options, both of which make my brain hurt with their stupidity, and would make the WTO pretty angry:
Trade only with 1st world countries, limiting the products sold in the UK to those produced in a few wealthy countries, and depriving growing economies of money through trade. Forget the fact we'll have to go without most electronics, this doesn't help with reducing the push factor in deprived countries, so I assume Comrade Corbyn won't go for it.
Make sure factories, farms, everything abroad that comes into the UK is produced as if it was made in the UK. Invariably, this means sending a lot of civil servants abroad to ensure producers meet inspection standards, like they would in the UK, or trusting international governments and business people to respect them (which, of course, they would obviously do).
Where he is right is that most immigrants to the UK work, contribute and pay taxes. This is a good thing, and I want more of it - by improving immigration policies, so that only hardworking people move here, not opening borders to anyone and everyone. Having only hardworking, taxpaying immigrants will not only financially benefit the taxpayer, it also reduces ill-sentiment caused to immigrants because of the well-publicised minority of problem ones. To reduce the burden of mass immigration, Corbyn's idea of throwing money at local governments to improve services is a noble one - but I still wonder where all this money will come from.
Corbyn fixes Europe
Don't worry comrades, he's organising a socialist conference in January for all the European socialist parties - many of whom, he reminds us, are in charge of governments...
If the continent is run by socialists, and the continent is doing badly, why do they think more of the same will fix it?
The British political elites are about as happy, and shocked, about President Trump as they were with Brexit. I was surprised about neither - both represented a desire for change in the minds of the people, and an understanding that the current political system fails to represent and benefit many. Such a groundswell of dissatisfaction in the population - enough to vote to leave the EU and elect President Trump - is what scares the politicians, who are slowly realising that business cannot continue as usual for much longer. Aside from the nationalist rhetoric, it is clear that one of the key facets of a Trump presidency will be political reform as he 'drains the swamp'. This is evidently necessary to make the political establishment more representative of, and more responsive to, their electorate - unfortunately, even post-Brexit, there is little political sentiment for the same reforms in the UK.
I suspect that by 2020, the UK will still be a member of the EU, albeit close to leaving; whilst I hope we will have triggered Article 50 before 2018, it seems likely negotiations to leave will be extended due to the political changes on the continent. Regardless, the UK will be negotiating Brexit for much (if not all) of Trump's presidency - leaving us in a precarious position:
The political establishment here unanimously backed Clinton and have strong ties to the US political establishment - most also expressed a strong dislike for Trump - notably including foreign secretary Boris Johnson. The only party mostly in favour of a Trump presidency was UKIP, with Nigel Farage speaking at rallies and advising Trump on strategy, even as his party descended into a farce. Both Trump and Farage have joked that he should play a role in UK/US relations over the coming years - sentiment abruptly shot-down by Prime Minister Theresa May, who said he would have neither a formal or informal role. I fear that this is a mistake on her part - whilst UKIP as a party is collapsing, Farage is a popular political figure to many, and one of the few elected politicians friendly with Trump.
Giving Farage a formal role in UK/US relations would serve to solve quite a few of the Prime Minister's current problems:
Primarily, offering Farage a formal role in US relations would appease UKIP voters, giving them at least the illusion of political power. With the party crumbling without his leadership, UKIP voters will be deciding whether to return to the major parties or seek an alternative 3rd party; giving Farage a formal role in aiding the Conservative government would signal to UKIP voters that their views are at least being heard by the establishment and thus weaken 3rd party resolve.
Secondly, Farage and Trump already have a friendly relationship - not soured by the statements made by establishment politicians in the run up to the election. The special relationship between the UK and the US, when at its strongest, has been based on friendship and mutual understanding - and can only be strengthened by the amicable rapport of Farage and Trump going forward. This will be particularly important if (or when) Trump makes sweeping changes to the US political establishment, breaking existing ties between UK establishment politicians and their outgoing Democratic counterparts.
Finally, sending Farage to America also sends him far away from EU negotiations. He is almost universally disliked or ridiculed by the European political class; if allowed to interfere too much in negotiations (even from the informal sidelines) his voice in the discussion could weaken our negotiating position, or strengthen the public resolve for more wide-reaching political change. Whilst in the long term, wide reaching political change is necessary - I'd prefer be out of the EU and have comfy trade deals sorted with the rest of the world before we do it.
As the UK opens up to the world post-Brexit, it seems to me that having Farage positively building links with the US - rather than negatively breaking them with the EU - is our best chance to rebuild the special relationship, and our best chance for a positive outcome in Brexit negotiations.
