Category Archives: Europe

Weekly review

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I’ve not posted much for the last few days. Actually nothing as I’ve been doing a few other things so I thought I’d do a little bit of a round up of events/issues.

On Tuesday the Penguin household braved the border patrols and sneaked into the Sandwell Borough to attend the launch of the Jon Cruddas Deputy Leadership campaign. Bob Piper did a good summing up of the event and in truly photographic genius style, managed to get the backs of the whole Penguin household in the frame. I learned one thing from that; I need a hair cut.

On the serious side it was refreshing to see Cruddas talk about issues that seem to have not got the attention they deserve in recent years, primarily that of social housing. The problems have been brewing for a generation but even if the debate is finally up there where it belongs, then perhaps we can start address an issue that affects many on lower incomes.

Following on from that, and it does beg the question: “where do we get these people from”, the comments made by Margaret Hodge. Short of making a play for the Leadership of the BNP, it makes you wonder how some people get to where they are on the basis of such awful political nouse. Perhaps it’s a lack of imagination but her comments have been rightfully condemned by many as they should. If she is concerned about the gains made by the BNP in her own constituency, not helped of course by her own last rash of daft comments then she should learn at least one thing of which I would have thought someone who has got the position of being an MP should already know.

You cannot win on the basis of using the argument of the opposition. Especially when that opposition are the horrid bunch of toe-rags that the BNP are. You cannot appropriate the blame for a lack of social housing by accepting the arguments from the far-right that it’s all these naughty East Europeans invading the country. She should know, unless Barking is a very strange place indeed that migrants rarely end up in council houses. The vast majority end up in low quality private sector accommodation or the equivalent of shared dorms of workers. They’re not holed up in nice 3 and 4 bedroom council semi’s because although if they are in the UK, earning and paying tax then they should be entitled, there’s a shitload more people ahead of them on the waiting lists who’ve been there for years and short of a very exceptional circumstance, they ain’t going to be able to jump the queues.

She would have been far more productive in addressing the reasons for this lack of housing and it’s underlying causes, rather than effectively writing the BNP’s next leaflet campaign in Barking for them.

I spotted this during the week too. I just have a few thoughts on this, none of them complimentary towards Microsoft as regular readers will have probably guessed. So here’s the scenario, Microsoft want there to be a professional body for IT people in the UK because there’s too many out there doing dodgy fixes or bodged jobs on systems.

First point being that this is a bit rich given the output of Microsoft in terms of ‘good’ programming is laughable. They release software with bugs in them, highly unsecure systems and quite frankly are not the people to lecture others about high levels of competence.

Secondly, they’ve helpfully inferred that their own Microsoft accreditation programme would be very useful in assessing and registering IT ‘professionals’. Well, no it woudn’t, it would tell people that they know how to use one of a myriad of different systems available, and the poorest of those to boot. Are they seriously thinking that the UK Government would fall for what is patently an attempt to sew up the market by being supplier and effective registrar of those who work in the industry. Come on, no Government Minister is going to fall for that one. On the other hand this is IT so it’s always possible, but thankfully it appears the Government is very cool to this idea of a professional body anyway.

Thirdly, and finally, I’ll admit it, I’m a bodger. Not so much these days but in a past life of being surrounded by Microsoft’s products at work. There’s two reasons you have to bodge around with systems. It has nothing to do with your level of expertise and everything to do with Microsoft. Apart from the software they produce being unstable and a complete security nightmare at times (yes I do remember manually having to hack a rather pernicious virus of computers across the UK via remote access and manually having to do every machines registry system because none of the tools that were supposed to work did, or they allowed the machines to re-infect each other before you could isolate them) but as with everything with Microsoft, you never 100% know what you’re dealing with. I can happily mess about the registry of a system, that thing they tell you never to touch because a character in the wrong place can happily kill a machine but despite this knowledge, I still don’t know exactly how Windows works. Why? Well, because they don’t release the code, it’s all secret so at best you’re dealing with educated guesswork or previous experience. You can never know exactly what’s going on because it doesn’t get outside of a building in Redmond.

I think that’s pretty much it for the weekly review. Apart from Mrs Penguin has nicked my ‘good’ computer, I’ve spent a lot of time enjoying watching my son learn to run and I’m looking forward to my first trip to the cinema to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3 since I went to see Star Wars – Revenge of the Sith, from which you can deduce I don’t go to the cinema very often. I’ve also took advantage of the brief bit of good weather to do some of the jobs I haven’t been able to do outside or that require sunshine. Sadly this opportunity seems short-lived as it’s decidedly pissing it down again. Good night to one and all.

A slightly perplexing notion

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Just before I head off out on the campaign trail I thought I’d drop this distinctly non-political post.

Apparently 35% of Europeans have no concept of physical laws.

The article I’m referring to is this one about a survey carried out by Motorola regarding European online viewing habits. The bit I’m particularly bemused about comes right at the end.

“Other findings of the survey included 45% of respondents expecting to be able to make video calls via their television by 2012 while 35% wanted to be able to pause, rewind or fast forward live broadcasts.”

Now unless 35% of Europeans are convinced that by 2012 the human species will have risen to such technical heights as to be able to port future images to the present then they’re just simply daft. Pray tell, how does one fast forward a live event? It by its very definition is live, therefore circumstances that may be viewed through the use of fast forward simply haven’t happened yet, so short of circumventing physical theory it remains completely impossible. One then has to wonder what credence one gives to a survey in terms of if the option was provided by the survey taker Motorola or indeed the responses to it.

The NHS is awful, we have the worst health service in the world don’t you know…

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It’s been a strange week in comparison to normal. My enforced housebound status due to having my toenail removed on Monday has meant I haven’t got out. This has meant I’ve completed lots of jobs (mainly techie) that I’ve been meaning to do for a while and I’ve completely exhausted every one of my RSS feeds in terms of my media consumption.

Every blog I read has been read, every media feed I have has been read, I’ve polished off Zelda the Twilight Princess and gone back through it to find all the hidden stuff, built my Lego Star Destroyer and have found myself at a loose end.

This led me to hunt out some new stuff to consume. I rarely get round to reading the online sections of newspapers, save for the dear old Express and Swastiki for pure frustration at how bad journalism can get but I found myself at the Guardian’s comment is free section. More precisely at this article by Polly Toynbee.

Haven’t read anything by her for years, which may sound odd being a leftie politico type but it’s true. However it made me remember that I’d been planning to write a piece about the impact of consumer society values on expectations of public services. I wasn’t planning on concentrating on the health service in particular but it is a very good example.

I’m not going to reiterate what Polly Toynbee has written, just read her article to get the jist but what struck me most was the comments to her article. I managed to get about half way through before I gave up in despair at the number of people slagging off the NHS, moaning about how much taxes they pay for it or doing down what we have in the UK and comparing it to other countries that have ‘better’ health services.

So I thought I’d share a bit of my own personal experience of the NHS.

I don’t use the health service much, I’ve only ever had one procedure done and short of a few trips to the GP for a bit of professional opinion and the odd bottle of jollop that’s about it. The only procedure I’ve had is the one that took place on Monday to remove my ingrowing big toenail. I visited my GP about five weeks ago because it was painful, he diagnosed it, referred me for the operation that should have been in about four to six weeks so five weeks is pretty much on the money and I had it done. I went back today as the operations are carried out at my local clinic in the town, a walk of about 200 yards to have my dressing changed and that was it. I don’t know how much this procedure cost the NHS nor the cumulative cost of my few visits to the GP over the years but I’d hazard a guess hardly anything compared to the proportion of the taxes that I’ve paid into the system to pay for its running.

The strange thing about this, at least if you are to believe some of the comments on Toynbee’s article is that I’m quite happy about this situation. I am quite happy to pay taxes to run a service that I do not wish to use. I’m happy because I’m not able to predict and control everything in my life. I do not know that one day one the arseholes who speed past my house isn’t going to knock me over and I end up in A&E with the requirement for a lot of treatment. I don’t know if I may suffer from an illness like cancer or suddenly have a heart attack but I do know that I quite like the idea that if I do, then I don’t have to worry too much about it because I won’t have to suddenly fork over thousands of pounds to cover the cost or find out suddenly there’s a clause in my health insurance that “doesn’t cover that condition or illness”. Such as I don’t mind that from my own perspective up till now I’ve paid thousands into the system for other people’s care and treatment, because come the day I may need treatment for something serious, those very same people may be the ones paying in to cover for my treatment. Personally however, I’d be quite happy to pay into the system for the whole of my working life and never have to have had another procedure done other than the one I’ve just had.

There were also numerous comments about waiting times for procedures and of course of a negative nature so I thought I’d add a few examples. I waiting five weeks to have a minor bit of surgery done relating to a condition that caused me minor discomfort but nothing agonising. I’m reminded back to about 16 years ago when a relative of mine had the same condition. He waited over six months for his operation and apparently that was a reasonable time to expect to wait in those days to have an ingrowing toenail removed. I think I quite like the way things are now because despite my condition being a minor discomfort for the period of five weeks, I don’t think I would have fancied it for six months, not even taking into account how the condition can get progressively more painful the longer it is left.

Second example. My mother had a problem with her ear a few months back. She went to the GP who referred her to a specialist at New Cross hospital in Wolverhampton which took about a fortnight. He saw her and asked her if she’d like to come back the following day to have the procedure done. Not sure about how other people might see that, but having the procedure done the next day seems rather a good service by my standards.

I’ll touch on a bit of comparative health provision which always comes up in these arguments usually about why our health service isn’t ‘as good’ as for example the French, German or Nordic ones. I won’t go into the old debate of comparing it to the US system of individual health insurance as it’s been done to death apart from noting that purely from an administrative cost analysis our system wins hands down in terms of efficiency. It’s simple, one form to fill in, if you’re registered as living at an address in the UK you can get an NHS number and that’s about it. You don’t have to pay for treatment at the point of need and whether you’re taken sick in Wolverhampton, Edinburgh or Machynlleth you can get treatment at the nearest hospital without any hassle. I use that example deliberately as you will see in a minute.

Now I will admit to not knowing much about the French health service apart from it’s based on a combined system of people paying for it through taxation and private health insurance. Germany is pretty much the same which I do know a bit more about for obvious reasons. Is it better? Well yes if your measurement of comparison is in terms of the potential wait you may have for things to get done. Perhaps this is part of the national psyche of the Germans? They don’t tend to like to wait for things, something very evident in Mrs Penguin and with their combined state funded and private health insurance system they get a faster service than we do. Of course they pay for it, not only through higher taxes but also having to afford private health policies on top and we are back to the old adage of getting what you pay for. Whatever rubbish is spouted by the right of British politics we have it fairly good in the UK in terms of taxation, both personal and business. What we have is a health service that is effectively done on the cheap because of the conditions under which it is expected to run. Despite its detractors it’s a pretty damn efficient organisation, of course more could be done but given how we pay comparably less for our health service than our near neighbours on the continent we get a pretty good deal.

Moving on to the Nordic model of which I know more about, in particular of the Finnish system having lived there. Theirs is in essence more comparable to ours in that it’s a directly funded for by the tax-payer system unless things have radically changed since I last lived there.

However here’s why I used the example of our own where it doesn’t matter if you’re in Wolverhampton, Edinburgh or Machynlleth when you need treatment. Much as the Finnish health system could be considered better than our own, less waiting times, better facilities etc etc, it’s not a ‘national’ health service. It’s funding comes through local taxation which on one hand is good in terms of being able to tailor treatments to more specific local areas but if for example you live and pay taxes in Tampere and just happen to be visiting Helsinki when your appendix starts to burst and there have been some examples of this. The doctors in Helsinki have been known to ship the patient 120 miles north back to Tampere so that they pick up the cost.

Personally if I happen to be in Sheffield and my appendix starts to burst I’d quite like to be taken to the local hospital and it done as quickly as possible there than be shipped back to Wolverhampton and that of course raises the issue of what is the overriding priority? As much as the Nordic system is very good, it doesn’t preclude the possibility of costs and funding overruling clinical patient care. I’ll just add that there’s actually another type of health service structure in Finland that I haven’t mentioned, that for students which is completely different and funded through membership of the local student union which is compulsory and has to be paid for. I won’t go into too much detail but over there students unions are very much a part of the social welfare structure as opposed to the organisers of piss-ups at universities over here. (that is a deliberately flippant remark for humorous value, yes I know they do some very important student welfare stuff here too before someone complains but in comparison it is nothing to the extent that they do in Finland)

What’s the conclusion? Well much as we would all want our treatment done the next day, it’s quite clear that in Britain people are not willing to fork over the extra money in taxation to pay for it. We have a pretty good and efficient health service that operates on significantly less money than those in France, Germany and the Nordic countries so we can’t really complain that much. We are spending more on the NHS now than we were under the Tories and the improvements in service and significantly lower waiting times are there to see but for some reason people seem not to understand this expecting everything to be done yesterday and of course not willing to cough up the extra cash to achieve this aim. Something for nothing I think that is called and it’s a very childish perspective to take which perhaps is a sad reflection on the society in which we live.

[note] I’d originally titled this article “In pursuit of happiness” and intended to go on to other areas but I’ve decided to keep it more focused on health issues. I’ll do the more general theme another time.

An excellent example of public awareness broadcasting

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Public service broadcasts often get it in the neck for being a bit on the crap side and in many cases this isn’t unjustified. The latest one on the dangers of drinking excessively is quite good, and of course the classic that scared the shit out of my generation was the AIDS advert from the 80′s, still as ominous to watch now as it was then.
That’s why I’d like to share this little one with you. It’s a German advert about the dangers of the internet. OK, it’s all in German but often it isn’t the words that are spoken that convey the message but the imagery used. It’s cleverness is the seamingly normal context in which it is set and is well worth a shufty.

As a parent it makes you think about how and when I would consider it appropriate to introduce my own son to the wonders of the net. It’s not one of those subjects you can seek advice from your own parents about as it simply wasn’t there when I was that young.
For me I’m pretty much of the opinion that to try and insulate children from all threats and dangers in life is a fruitless and ultimately impossible task.
The best that one can hope for is to prepare them by being honest, discussing the issues openly and as much as we might teach our kids the Green Cross Code (is it still called that these days) to keep them safe on the streets, we should do the same for other areas of potential danger.
I for one will be passing on my own techie knowledge so that to use a slightly innapropriate phrase, he will go in to the situation all tooled up and if needs be, be able to defend himself when it comes to the net. The problem is however, that although I have those skills, very few parents will and that’s why I like this advert, it gets the message across and as I believe this is an initiative funded by the EU in relation to The Safer Internet Programme it’s backed up by quite a bit of advice and resources for parents.
In closing, I’ll show my ignorance. I don’t watch much British television so I’d be interested if either this advert has been dubbed into English and used here, which if it hasn’t it really should be or if we’ve done a similar awareness campaign and what was our adverts like?

A very long post – Part I

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When I originally started this post about a fortnight ago I intended to come back to it but haven’t. Partly due to other things taking up my time and equally a sheer bit of laziness. I had thought it best to write the whole post in one go mindful of the possibility of meandering off the point if I were to split it up. However I’ve decided that if I am to ever finish it then I’m going to have to do it in smaller bitesize chunks. So here’s the first part.

Another of those, I’ve been meaning to write this for a while but didn’t get round to it and this time there’s a bloody good reason. This one’s a biggy.
So to just do a little overview, we’ll be covering:
The Environment
Climate Change
Inequality
Economics
Tax
Trade
Energy policy
National security
The EU
Foreign policy
Recycling
and last but not least, Bulgarian made childrens wooden toy trains.

So where to begin on this one? OK, we’ve had the news that there’s only two European countries that are well on the way to meeting their obligations under the Kyoto agreement on the reduction of carbon emissions. These are Sweden and our own little plucky island. Good news of course, after years of being called the ‘dirty man’ of Europe we’re now up there with the moral high ground when it comes to the environment and we can patronise the others for not being as committed to saving the planet as us consciencous Brits.
However, and I’m sure regular readers will know my style by now that there is always an ‘however’ waiting to pounce at inopportune moments. Are we really so squeaky clean as this news portrays us?
My inspiration for this article comes from no less a source than Gordon Brown. While the Penguin’s were away in Germany over Christmas and New Year, I was admittedly, starved of my regular dose of news, at least in a language that I speak fluently. However, a brief 15 minutes of catching CNN brought a statement from Gordon Brown in the House of Commons for which I have no clue what debate it was but the pertenent statement he made was that 75% of toys coming into the UK for the Christmas just gone were from China.

As I had nothing else to do at the time this got me thinking and the threads of this post are very much the deliberations that passed through my mind. Britain is importing 75% of the toys that were presumably purchased last Christmas from China alone. This does not include those imports from other countries that send us the toys our children play with. So I pondered on the point of what toys my 11 month old son plays with at present. Before he was born, from certain branches of my family we received various items, mainly clothes and ‘hand-me-downs’ but also some toys. These toys were of the plastic or fabric variety that befits a newborn and at that time I noticed that virtually without exception they all had ‘made in China’ somewhere on them.
This led me into a bit of nostalgic patriotism of why aren’t things made in this country anymore which is often easy to slip into. My own childhood was dominated by Corgi and Dinky cars, Hornby Railways and Scalectrix, all made in Britain. I then realised that actually, it wasn’t, if they did play a part in my childhood play habits, then they were all completely overshadowed by Lego. I had absolutely shitloads of the stuff (although this might have been helped by winning a national Lego building championship when I was four and getting lots of sets as a prize). Lego however isn’t a product of our little island, it’s native land is Denmark and is produced both there and in Switzerland. At school there were deep rivalries between the Lego kids of which for some reason I became the ringleader and the Playmobil kids another toy that I believe is native to Germany.
Enough of my childhood, back to the main issue. Increasingly we find that the toys our children play with are not made in this country or even in near neighbours across the channel. They are manufactured on the other side of the planet and shipped over to us to indulge our consumeristic needs.
As the first year of my sons life is nearing its close I have taken stock of the toys that have accumilated over the time. It is interesting to note that they fall into two distinct categories. Those purchased in the UK which as far as I’m aware, with no exception were all made in countries other than the UK and primarily in China except the Duplo Lego which we already know where that’s from and those toys sent from Germany which on the whole were all manufactured in Germany apart from a plastic aeroplane with some strange writing that I’m assuming is Polish.
Now when I was in Germany I did some price comparisons which I alluded to in a previous post on the relative cost of Windows XP in Germany compared to the UK. I also looked into the price of childrens toys in the local store and compared them to comparable products that are available here or those that we had already purchased.
First up is those plastic cup things that you can either stack one way to build a large tower or the other way where they fit into each other. The ones we got from the Early Learning Centre cost

Just a bit of fun….

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Before anyone calls me sexist, condecending, or some right-wingers decide to get up and support the bitch with counter arguments, I’ll point out that this is purely a bit of polemical fun for the amusement of lefties and anyone who knows me, knows I’m none of the above.
A few years ago, Britain got its first female Prime Minister who has a record for doing a few little things that got up the nose of the people of my particular political persuasion.
Even more recently Germany got their first female Chancellor so I thought I’d do a bit of a comparison.
Cut back on social welfare – Check
Hiked up VAT, a regressive tax that hits the poorer people first – Check
Introduced systems that favour making the rich richer – Check
Cut back on trades union rights – Check
And now the bitch is closing the pits.
So when is she going to start a war in the south atlantic and introduce the poll tax?

Musings on identity

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I’ll admit I’m leading into a bit of a rant today, but no foul language I promise. My subject is the issue of car license plates and identity. Now before someone tries to be clever and post something about identity not being purely a question of geographic location, I’ll add that I’m fully aware of this and maybe that will be the topic of another post, but purely in terms of the this post I am considering primarily that facet of personal identity that is derived from a geographic context.
Just so that everyone is clear where I’m coming from, I thought I’d start of by giving you my concept of identity as I see myself. First and foremost I’m a member of the human race, yes, our species of homo-sapiens that have come to be the dominant species on our planet. Secondly I’m a European, being that I have spent every second of my life within the generally agreed area of what constitutes Europe. Thirdly I’m a Brit, an Englishman, a Midlander, a Wulfrunian and whatever term could be used to describe someone as coming from Willenhall. I am completely happy with my identity/identities as they are, I neither see one nor the other as being more or less important. I also see no reason to openly display affiliation to one or the other as a preference.
So now the gripe. A few years ago we started to intoduce number plates on new cars that have the GB emblem and a litle EU flag above it. However, it seems common that people stick little England flags over this part of the license plate, presumably as some form of expression of hatred for the European Union and to display their nationality as they see it.
Before I start to get comments about being an England basher and being unpatriotic I would add that I have no problems with the display of the England flag in many different contexts, be it hanging out of windows, across streets or even those little flagpole things that people put on their cars during football championships. I’ve also been known to hang the flag out during the European and World Cups myself.
However what I don’t agree with is the deliberate defacing of car number plates that are there for an official reason.
Now the legal requirements in the UK do not need to have the GB and Euro flag element on the number plate contrary to what rabid anti-European’s might like people to believe in this being a conspiracy to rob us poor Brits/English of our identity. However, from my point of view they just seem sensible and here’s the reason.
Should one want to drive on the continent, it is a requirement that the car must display the internationally recognised national identifier tag of ‘GB’. To not do this is an offence. So for all those people who stick England flags over their number plate, sorry, but you’re daft behaviour means that you’re going to have to fork out more money for another ‘GB’ sticker should you ever pop over to France on a beer and fag run. Doesn’t this just sound that bit illogical?
A final point. Having made clear that I personally am quite content with what I see as my own identity, lets take the English identity here as the example. Were I to own a car with a GB and EU flag number plate then I would feel no desire to whack an England sticker over the top as an assertion of my identity because I’m quite secure in how I see mine.
Which beggars the question, does the need to do such a think show a deepseated insecurity in those who need to outwardly show such a pointless assertion of their nationality? It truly is as pointless as the argument that suddenly we are less British if we have the Euro. I’m sorry for all those who think that their identity is defined by a few coins in their pocket, or a sticker on their number plate but I happen to think there’s a bit more to it than that.
Oh, and I am just waiting for the Sun headline about some dipstick pulled over by the French police for not showing a GB sticker after he’s plastered an England flag over his plate. It has to happen some day.