My policy of paying no attention to the news had been going well, and then the boss decided that we simply had to respond to an article in The Times. So it's temporarily back to banging my head against a brick wall, as you may have guessed from the appearance of this post.

The article in question was a Guest Comment by Sam Laidlaw, Chief Executive of Centrica, whose heading summarises his argument pretty well: "Put a price on carbon, but not a tax". This might seem to be a reasonable, even a liberal argument. Unless you are close to the energy industry, you would probably not realise how this was just another example of the way that energy policy has become a plaything for the energy corporates to try to gain commercial advantage. The Government's policy is practically being dictated by the positions of companies like Centrica, who are very clever in dressing up self-interested positions as plausible, apparently impartial and principled arguments. I will let the letter I sent to The Times explain how so in this case:

Sir,

Sam Laidlaw says that we must "put a price on carbon". He does not differentiate between sources of carbon, and rightly so. Our climate does not, and neither should we.

One of the many failings of cap-and-trade, unlike a carbon tax, is that it is not practical for highly-fragmented markets, such as the very large market for domestic heating. The domestic consumer of 'natural' gas (or heating-oil or LPG in remote areas) is therefore not "forced to pay", which reduces incentives for householders to act sensibly and to consider alternatives like renewables.

Mr Laidlaw opposes the intervention of government(s) in setting the price of carbon, but in fact such interventions pervade the system of cap-and-trade. In the absence of a carbon-tax, the only other levers that the Government can pull in the domestic sector are either partial, bureaucratic and poorly-funded grant-mechanisms (such as the Low-Carbon Buildings Programme, in which Centrica’s subsidiary British Gas has been given a privileged position), or regulations and obligations (such as the Energy-Efficiency Commitment, in which again only the major energy suppliers, such as Centrica, can participate).

Mr Laidlaw presumably prefers these mechanisms to a tax that is the only practical way of pricing carbon equally across all types of consumers, large and small, but he then must accept that most of his customers are insulated from the cost of carbon, an approach that he says is wrong. Policymakers and consumers ought also to be concerned that those measures embed the power of the incumbent energy suppliers, and inhibit innovation and competition from new entrants.

Yours,
etc.

It was not published, of course. I have no complaint - that is their prerogative. But more strangely, I also tried, when it wasn't published, to post this message (in two parts, because of the 1000-character limit) to their website, but it hasn't shown up there either. Another message that I posted afterwards, in response to another poster who suggested we should have a government-subsidised investment fund rather than carbon-pricing, has appeared, which makes me wonder why the earlier posts didn't show. Was this a technical hitch, or was it moderated? It seems unlikely to be a technical issue, as the later post got through fine, and it is strange for both halves of the first message to suffer a technical glitch that other messages did not experience. My guess is that it was moderated, but why?

Apologies to the regular visitors to this site (both of you), for the abrupt termination of posts, and then the more recent disappearance altogether (a technical hitch that went uncorrected because I wasn't paying attention).

A combination of factors led me to give up on the site.

• It was taking up too much of my time.
• I was increasingly aware that I was either preaching to the converted or trying to convert people whose minds were as made up as my own.
• Most political debate nowadays has nothing to do with philosophy or even reason, and everything to do with vested and selfish interests, or maintaining whatever fiction is necessary to avoid losing face or having to rethink one's prejudices.
• I still accept Hayek's arguments that it is necessary to change the intellectual climate before any change in the political landscape is possible, but it is clear that the blogosphere does not provide as useful a way of circumventing the control of most avenues of public communication by the New Elites (as accurately described by George Walden) as I thought it might.
• Recent examples of being ignored, circumvented and sometimes shafted in the policy debates in the field in which our company were pioneers and major investors have come so thick and fast that the latest example broke the camel's back - I now believe that our political system is so corrupt in its corporatism that it is beyond redemption. We can only wait for our 1979, and I fear, even though the consequences are already apparent of the complete intellectual bankruptcy and failure of the wet, interventionist approach that has been the hallmark of British (and indeed, most Western) government since 1992, that we have at least a decade to go before people realise how many wrong turns have been taken. It is better to wait until people are ready to hear the message than try to force it down their throats ahead of time.
• At the same time as I despaired of the British economy and polity, an opportunity came up to develop a new aspect of our business in Switzerland. PL was the outlet of frustration at trying to operate in the British political and economic environment. When the latest incident destroyed any illusion I had that things might change in the near future, or that reason might prevail, I experienced a Lao Tzu-style awakening that greater peace and happiness could be found in resignation than in continuous hopeless struggle. Switzerland has shown both how bad Britain is, and how much more pleasant and useful it is to work on something practical that is not so dependent on political initiative.

It may yet happen that I am forced back in to working full-time in the British economy (which naturally means the British political sphere, as there is barely anything left of our economy that is not heavily influenced by government policy), in which case PL will probably be revived as an outlet for my frustrations. But I hope to God not. I am so repulsed by the shallow, self-deluding, self-serving and yet naive (in their failure to understand the bigger picture) machinations of most of the figures who are put forward as being worth listening to (whether politicians, civil servants, academics, journalists, lobbyists or "captains of industry") that I have developed an aversion verging on allergy to all topical "debate" in the media. It usually only takes a sentence or two before my head feels like it will explode and I am wanting to throw the TV, radio, or paper out of the window. Life is too short to waste on continuous uphill struggles, and likely to be all the shorter if I do. So for now, I am signing off, and if I never sign on again, you will know it is for the best.

It is being reported that the heir to Blair now wants to be the heir to Thatcher - apparently the whole Blair thing wasn't working.  The good news out of all this is Cameron has realised that green taxation as a means of looking green rather than actually tackling the issues associated with climate change was a bad thing after all.  It is expected that Cameron will u-turn at next week's election and scrap the bonkers talk about taxing second flights and car parking at supermarkets.  All he need do now is get rid of Zac Goldsmith, never ask John Gummer to write him a report again and prepare for a humiliating defeat at the polls in a month's time or so.

The government has made a sensible choice on the issue of light bulbs, I believe. The headlines ran that traditional light bulbs will be phased out by 2012 - but the key here is that the initiative is voluntary. Supermarkets and energy suppliers have agreed to gradually phase out incandescent bulbs from next year. It is supposed that while energy saving bulbs cost more to buy they last up to 12 times as long and use nearly 80% less electricity. Which can only be a good thing. Other countries have introduced an all out ban, such as Australia who will ban conventional bulbs beyond 2009.

Greenpeace has responded by saying: "The government needs to go further and introduce tough mandatory efficiency standards rather than relying on weak voluntary initiatives. For every year of delay in getting rid of these bulbs, 5m tonnes of CO2 are emitted into the atmosphere unnecessarily." But how is working closely with the industry, letting the market decide and getting a sensible and effective result a bad thing? Well done environment secretary Hilary Benn, I say.

Government

• Thousands of five- to seven-year-olds are still being taught illegally in classes of more than 30, according to Government figures released yesterday. An annual census of state schools published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families revealed 4,280 key stage 1 pupils were being taught in 130 oversized classes, contrary to legal requirements. A further 18,930 schoolchildren aged between five and seven were also taught in classes of more than 30, although the schools involved had been granted exemptions to do so, often because they had to admit an emergency pupil in the middle of term. The figures were an improvement on 2006, when more than 7,000 five- to seven-year-olds were taught illegally. But teachers' leaders said last night the failure to eradicate oversized classes completely placed a question mark over the priority ministers were giving to the reduction of class sizes, particularly after Gordon Brown made personalised learning the key education policy theme of his first leader's speech to the Labour party conference in Bournemouth. http://news.independent.co.uk/education/education_news/article3007133.ece
• The plug will be pulled on nearly all conventional lightbulbs after supermarkets and energy suppliers agreed to gradually phase out incandescent bulbs from next year, the government said yesterday.
  
  
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The new Brown government is doing an incredible and shameless job of presenting a whole new load of ideas as though the past ten years were a massive mistake that was none of their doing.  In the same way we don't vote for a Prime Minister come election time, we vote for a party (the Labour elite trotted this line out - fairly - prior to Brown's coronation) by getting rid of the leader does not somehow erase all the mess that the government has made over the past ten years.  You got rid of one man - the rest of you are still there.  In fact, while Blair was trying to make himself leader of the free-world, Brown pretty much ran domestic policy.  So why, all of sudden, were you wrong about the NHS, wrong about education, wrong about Iraq and now wrong about crime?  What has changed?  You all voted and backed these measures, yet you seem to be passing the buck saying "it was nothing to do with me, guv" like the most clueless of henchmen.

Government

• Gordon Brown has vowed to close any tax loophole that benefits private equity, in an attempt to allay Labour concerns that he has been too generous to the "super-rich". The prime minister was challenged on Wednesday at the Labour conference in Bournemouth to tighten up the tax regime for private equity chiefs and non-domiciled executives, who have become targets of trade union anger. Mr Brown sidestepped the future status of so-called non-doms but said next month's pre-Budget report would deliver a verdict on whether private equity chiefs benefited from loopholes. "Whenever there is a loophole that shouldn't exist, we take action," he said during a question-and-answer session. "Sometimes it's very difficult to do so because you've got lawyers and accountants who are always trying to find these loopholes. But on this issue of private equity, I can assure you we will do so." Treasury officials confirmed work was continuing "across the piece" on tax issues relating to private equity but stressed there was no presumption that there should be any changes to the current system. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f8fbbb7c-6c6f-11dc-a0cf-0000779fd2ac.html
• Health inspectors are to mount spot checks on NHS hospitals after finding hundreds of older people being treated without dignity or adequate privacy on wards across England.
  
  
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Ed Balls has finally admitted that the government has got it wrong on education over the past ten years and that their pledge to have their three main priorities as education, education, education has been a total failure.  At least, he inadvertently implied it anyway - you didn't really think he'd actually say that do you?!

Despite only a month ago the government dismissing claims that exams were getting easier and the education system has been dumbed down, the children's secretary is expected to announce today plans to split the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in two. One body will establish and oversee the curriculum and exams system, the other will act as regulator.  This will effectively create an independent exams watchdog.  The move is being compared to Brown's decision to make the Bank of England independent in 1997.  Balls hope that it will quell the annual dumbing down debate.  In practice, not only is this an admission that Labour got it wrong but it means when it goes wrong in the future they can blame the "independent" body.  All for the princely sum of £144m invoiced to the taxpayer.

Government  

The war on motorists looks set to get worse in the suburbs.  Nottingham council has said that they expect that by 2014 commuters could face a "car parking tax" of as much as £350 a year to park at their workplace.  Failure to pay the charge would be £175 per offence. 

Now, I understand parking charges on council owned property, but charging companies tax to have their employees park on private property seems a little unfair.  Of course, employers will probably pass this cost on to employees.  They see this as an alternative to a congestion charge.  Once again the government and local government fail to realise that, for many, there is no alternative.  People do not sit in traffic for the fun of it; they do it because they have to.  It is all very well to have a congestion charge in central London, where there is a mass public transport infrastructure, but those in the suburbs and countryside can not jump on the tube or have the luxury of a constant stream of buses dropping outside their doorstep.  They have to drive and so they have to pay the financial penalties... then again, may the government and local government know this all too well - does wonders for raising coffers even if it doesn't tackle climate change or congestion.

Government  

Yesterday Gordon Brown made one of the most ground breaking, novel, ingenious, brilliant promises any politician has ever made.  The saviour of the NHS promised us clean hospitals for all.  Yes, that's right - while the rest us having been trying to work out what the most basic, obvious thing a hospital should be, Brown put his finger on it by making the pledge that we will no longer have to suffer from catching disease and viruses from the one place we go to get rid of them. 

Why does he have to make this pledge in the first place?  The man has spent billions upon billions upon billions on the NHS and ten years down the line he talking about making them hygienic!  Surely a hygienic hospital is the first thing it should be - not the after thought of ten years failed investment. 

Mr Brown said: "We know that over time, ingrained cleanliness problems build up, especially in hard-to-reach places like ceilings and ventilation ducts, which cannot be dealt with by day-to-day cleaning. So over the next year, for the first time, every hospital will receive a 'deep clean' designed to return our hospitals to the state they were in when they were built brand new."  What on earth is he talking about? 

Apparently “No government should ever be in the business of protecting executives who make the wrong call or bad decisions,” or so said Alastair Darling at the opening of yesterday's conference. But isn't this exactly what he did little over a weeks ago with Northern Rock?

Yesterday on Andrew Marr's programme Gordon Brown refused to answer straight when probed about when he knew about the Northern Rock's troubles.  Marr showed his weakness by not pursuing this further as he clearly had Brown on the ropes but then just let him go... probably why he does the Sunday morning show and Paxman the evening one.  The government has looked a bit stupid over all this, and well they might - they have made it up as they went along and now look like they are doing a massive u-turn when they realised they had inadvertently nationalised the banking system.  Despite this fiasco, the Tories have lost even more ground to Labour in the polls.  Surely this is the clearest sign yet that even if the government cocks up the economy they are still better than going with any of the other realistic options?  The political system is not working in this country - we are stuck with dumb or dumber. 

Government

• Executives at high-profile companies cannot rely on being bailed out of emergencies by the government - in spite of the precedent set by the state's help for Northern Rock savers - Alistair Darling warned on Sunday. "No government should ever be in the business of protecting executives who make the wrong call or bad decisions," the chancellor told the opening day of the Labour party conference. The remarks will be seen as a warning to the embattled Northern Rock board that ministers will not shield it from shareholders seeking retribution by removing directors from their posts. But Mr Darling's comments are understood to have been intended more broadly to signal that the state will not act as some form of safety net for private sector companies, in spite of the unlimited government guarantee given for Northern Rock deposits. Proposals to improve significantly the deposit protection scheme in the wake of the Northern Rock crisis - increasing the upper limit to about £100,000 and introducing a US-style insurance system to allow fast payouts - would "strengthen protection for ordinary savers", Mr Darling said. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6553cb30-6a17-11dc-a571-0000779fd2ac.html
• Gordon Brown will set out his vision of another decade of Labour government today and leave the door wide open to an autumn general election. With election fever gripping the Labour Party at its Bournemouth conference, Mr Brown and his closest supporters have been deliberately keeping the prospect of an early poll hanging over this week's gathering and next week's Conservative conference. Labour MPs in marginal seats are said to be telling the whips that Mr Brown should capitalise on his strong standing and go for broke. The speculation was fuelled further last night as an Ipsos-MORI poll for The Sun gave Labour an eight-point lead with a rating of 42 per cent, equalling the highest in any poll since Mr Brown became leader. The Conservatives were on 34 per cent and Liberal Democrats on 14 per cent. David Cameron has put the Tories on alert for an election even though some strategists think that Mr Brown's natural caution will stand in the way. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2518149.ece
• Gordon Brown yesterday promised a deep clean of NHS hospitals, modelled on US experience, as part of a new drive to rid hospitals of MRSA and win back voters and patients disillusioned with the health service. He also promised that the initial findings of Lord Darzi's review of the NHS will be published shortly, promising a more personalised service and longer GP opening hours. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour2007/story/0,,2175639,00.html

Conservatives

• David Cameron will trigger a revolt with his party activists by imposing "A-list" candidates on constituencies that have not already chosen should Gordon Brown call an election next month, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.Dozens of associations have yet to selected their candidates - including some in key marginal seats which the Conservatives have to win to deprive Labour of an overall majority, such as Rochester in Kent. Local associations jealously guard their independence and will resist any move by Conservative Central Office to impose candidates from Mr Cameron's A-list which was devised to help more women, ethnic minority, and gay candidates secure winnable seats. However, The Daily Telegraph understands that if the Prime Minister goes to the country within the next fortnight, those constituencies without a candidate will have one from the A-list imposed upon them. One senior party strategist said: "Our strategy is to try to stop Brown calling an early election. We are throwing everything into that. If it comes we will be ready. We will parachute A-list candidates into some of the seats. There will be a bit of a row with the voluntary party, but time will be of the essence." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/24/ntory124.xml

Another day, another report telling us that the government has wasted £43bn of taxpayers' money on the NHS.  This time the source is... the patients themselves!  And not just a few disgruntled ones either.  1.4 million of them were surveyed!

 The Picker Institute, a health research charity, found 48% of hospital patients were not as involved as they wanted to be in decisions about their care. The proportion had not changed since 2004 - despite increases in spending of £43bn. The proportion of patients saying they were given enough information about the side effects of medicines actually fell from 61% in 2004 to 58% in 2006.  The government spokesman was wheeled out by the Department for Health to comment.  He said "We take the views of patients extremely seriously, and have put their needs at the centre of our health service reform. Only this week, the health minister Lord Darzi hosted a series of engagement events across the country as part of his NHS review."  So, you badly invest £43bn of our money and then listen to what the patients want?  Haven't you got your processes back to front here?

British ministers are refusing to cooperate with the US criminal investigation into allegations of corruption against BAE, Britain's biggest arms company, the Guardian can disclose. More than two months after an official request for mutual legal assistance (MLA) was received from Washington, the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, has not yet allowed it to be acted upon. The US investigators believe the British are being obstructive.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/baefiles/story/0,,2173947,00.html

Britain's stocks of plutonium are kept in "unacceptable" conditions and pose a severe safety and security risk, experts warn today. The Royal Society says ministers must urgently review the way more than 100 tonnes of the radioactive element, separated during the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, is held at the Sellafield complex in Cumbria. The society, Britain's premier scientific academy, says a previous warning to the government has been ignored, and that the rise of international terrorism means the UK must now find a way to use or dispose of the material.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,,2173837,00.html

Government consultation are a bit like the old Saturday afternoon wrestling, with the government playing the role of Big Daddy and the rest of us the enormous, yet hopeless, Giant Haystacks. Everyone knows who is going to win, but we have to go through all that nonsense before hand before Big Daddy is, once again, declared the winner. And so with the nuclear consultation - the government clearly wants pro-nuclear to come out favourite, everyone knows it will be the favoured option, but we have to go through all the nonsense before hand to make it look like there was some sort of contest.

Of course this is the second time the government has "consulted" on nuclear new build in the past 12 months. This is because, last time the audience were watching the big fight between Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks they smelt a rat. They started to realise that it was a bit odd, given that Giant Haystacks was twice the size of Big Daddy, he kept losing. Now far be it from me to suggest that the old Sunday afternoon wrestling was a fix, but something was up there wasn't it? And something was up with the last nuclear consultation too - so the courts ruled that we needed a rematch!

Government

• The first comprehensive official analysis of the impact of migration on public services and British life will be published next month, Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, promised yesterday. The study, by the Migration Impacts Forum, is expected to identify where public services, including housing, health, education and policing, are struggling to cope. It is also expected to publish a report on challenges to community cohesion prepared by Rodney Green, chief executive of Leicester city council, which has been projected to become Europe's first city with a non-white majority population within three years. http://www.guardian.co.uk/immigration/story/0,,2172825,00.html
• An academic observer of Britain's nuclear consultation has said that information given to the public was biased and incomplete, casting fresh doubt on whether the the government has followed a court ruling to present both sides of the argument. Paul Dorfman, senior research fellow at the National Centre for Involvement at the University of Warwick, said the exercise 12 days ago in nine cities around Britain was designed to come up with a popular mandate to proceed with nuclear power. "Partial information was rammed down the public's throat. It was totally impractical for people to make a rational decision based on the information they were fed. The way it was put together was designed so that a particular view would emerge," said Dr Dorfman, who has convened an academic group who will report next month on the process. The consultation suggested that 45% of the public is in favour of nuclear power, and 23% against - very different from most polls in the last 20 years. http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2173018,00.html

Lib Dems

• Shoppers could pay a tax every time they get a plastic bag under controversial "green" plans approved by the Liberal Democrats. Grassroots delegates at the party's annual conference in Brighton urged party bosses to consider an Irish-style tax on plastic bags. Dublin introduced a plastic bag levy five years ago to end the litter menace generated by the bags. Lib Dems have put the fight against global warming centre-stage at their week-long conference, which has the slogan: The Environment - Action Now. But the new tax move, announced during a debate on packaging, came in the face of warnings that the levy would actually worsen carbon emissions. Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem MP leading a campaign against excess packaging, said that the tax could simply lead to shoppers switching to other bags and actually lead to more pollution. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/09/19/ealib119.xml

Security breach on Government's £12bn upgrade computer system shocker!  So the new computer system in the NHS isn't a tight as Fort Knox or even as secure as the flies on John Prescott's trousers it turns out.  What a surprise.  Amusingly, it was a celebrity whose details have been pried upon by some geek locked away in his bedroom somewhere, no doubt, with the hope of making a few quid out of the News of the World.  Unfortunately they didn't name the celebrity involved, though it was in the North West region and probably someone with a sort after medical history... it couldn't be a certain Mr Blair could it?  Wishful thinking, but the poetic justice would be perfect, wouldn't it?  (Mr Blair is a celebrity now, isn't he? – in fact he always was!)

This whole project, as I have said before, is a vast waste of money and is inevitably going to create as many if not far more problems than it solves.  If they can't get this right, then how they are getting away with going ahead with ID cards I have no idea.

The Times is reporting that town halls would be forced to take action over petitions with more than 200 signatures under new proposals to devolve power to voters. This is Hazel Blears' big idea for making councils act on demand of the power of the people. This is straight out of "The Big Book of Stupid Political Ideas" (foreword by some unknown Lib Dem - probably their leader). Blears has obviously given this "giving democracy back to the people" idea a lot of thought. Even the figure of 200 signatures isn't entirely arbitrary. She says "If the number was too low, say about 25, a small group of people could waste the council’s time. But if the number was too high, at around 500, it might be difficult to get enough signatures for an important issue.” Very scientific.

All this does beg one or two questions...

Firstly, as we all know from the No.10 epetitions, most people are more interested in the "making the PM stand on his head and juggle jelly" issues rather than slightly more pressing issues such as crime or health. Never fear, good old Hazel has thought of this too. Any petition getting the required signatures would mean that councils would be required to respond, either by changing policy or giving a full explanation of why the request was turned down. So they act in exactly the same way as if anyone asked the council to do something then?