Your Tax Money At Work

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MEMBERS of parliament could lose the right to vote themselves pay increases under plans to link their salaries directly to the earnings of judges and other senior public sector staff.

Gordon Brown, the prime minister, is understood to be “sympathetic” to proposals that would ensure the pay of MPs is in step with that of judges or senior doctors, most of whom earn at least £100,000 a year.

Hmm. Let us think about this for a little bit, shall we? A judge will have had to go through a number of qualifying stages. First to become a lawyer. Then to actually become a good one (no, they don\’t promote the dunderheads). A working career of 20-30 years perhaps, being monitored all the while. Then there will be, at some point along the way, trainee judgeships: things like a part-time Recorder (something Cherie Booth has done, as an example). Finally, our lawyer, who has done this part-time judging so that people can evaluate ability to do the job, might get appointed. And, at least usually, take a pay cut when becoming a judge.

Doctors? To become a senior doctor (or a GP), you first need to get top end results at A level to even get into medical school. Then there\’s the first degree and some further years of training. 7 in total I think it is. Plus some further years of on the job training to get to the point where one is indeed making that fabled £100k. Something like a decade all told: less time than a judge, certainly, but then one is not taking a pay cut when reaching that peak.

And to become an MP? Well, let\’s be honest about this, shall we? For most of the UK constituencies are in fact one party states. Aberystwyth (or however you spell the damn place) or Islwyn will elect a donkey as long as it wears a red rosette. Hull East is coming up for selection and everyone knows that the Labour Party nominee will become the MP. Similarly, if Boris wins the Mayorality and leaves Henley, no one thinks that anything other than the Tory Party hustings will determine who the next MP is. Thus for most (many?) MPs, certainly those who actually expect to make a career of it in a safe seat, becoming an MP is about greasing up to the small number of people who determine who the nominee is for a certain party in a certain seat.

And the argument is that this skill should be equally rewarded as the other two?

I think not.

Eavesdropping operations on criminal and terrorist suspects by the Federal Bureau of Investigation have collapsed because the bureau has failed to pay its telephone bills.

There is a simple solution to this particular part of the problem:

Last night, Labour sources disclosed that one of the problems in getting MPs to show restraint is the high number who plan to retire at the end of this Parliament.

This is a problem because pensions are linked to their last salary.

Adopt the American system. Pay increases are indeed voted upon by the chamber to which they apply: but they only come into force after the next election.

Hundreds of Iraqi interpreters employed by the British Armed Forces in Iraq are being rejected after applying to live in Britain for their own safety.

Out of 700 who have now applied through the Ministry of Defence for the special settlement scheme announced by the Government last year, 300 have been rejected already, the MoD said yesterday.

Only 170 have been told they are eligible, and the rest are being processed. Successful applicants will be allowed to bring their closest dependants, including grandparents, if the Home Office accepts them as refugees.

An additional 180 Iraqis have applied through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office because they worked at the British Embassy in Baghdad or at other diplomatic missions. Of these, 38 have been turned down either for the settlement deal or for the alternative financial assistance package, The Times has learnt.

Defence sources said applicants were failing to meet the Government\’s strict eligibility conditions under which ex-Iraqi employees are required to prove 12 months of continuous employment with the British forces.

This system designed by The Honourable I\’d like a 10% pay rise and The Right Honourable no you can\’t see my expenses claims.

Forgive my visions of the mobbing peasantry descending upon them, pitchforks waving and brands alight.

Not on these figures matey:

Pensions for MPs will cost taxpayers nearly three times the original estimate, it has been revealed.

The annual bill for funding MPs\’ generous final salary pension schemes could be as high as £20.5 million – or £29,000 for each one.

Of course, this isn\’t the figure publically announced:

The most recent Commons accounts report that the cost to the taxpayer of paying for this scheme is £7.8 million – or £11,000 per MP.

However this is calculated using an optimistic view of the stock market. Under an accounting treatment used by most companies and public bodies, the actual cost is £20.5 million, or £29,000 for every MP.

Pension contributions should be counted as pay, at least for the purposes of measuring the relative incomes from different jobs. For they are a form of delayed pay.

But as I\’ve said before, MPs are currently grossly over paid, as evidenced by the fact that so many people are both qualified to be one and eager to be so.

As we know, the training of doctors in the UK is a government monopoly. While they control the medical school numbers only indirectly, they control the number of NHS training posts directly. Thye system is thus planned from the centre:

Three applicants will be fighting it out for every post and in some surgical specialities competition ratios will exceed 20 to one.

This centralised planning thing works really well, doesn\’t it?

The Bank of England has been sidelined in a proposed shake-up of Britain\’s banking system that will hand greater powers to its regulatory partners, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority.

Chancellor Alistair Darling has limited the Bank\’s contribution in the event of another Northern Rock to an advisory role while giving the FSA new powers of intervention.

Let\’s take regulation of the banking system away from bankers and give it to people who don\’t know what they\’re doing. What a clever idea!

Grr:

Parents could be required to provide their children with high-speed internet access under plans being drawn up by ministers in partnership with some of the country\’s leading IT firms.

Jim Knight, the schools minister, said he is in talks with companies such as Microsoft, BT, Sky, Virgin and RM to help close the widening achievement gap between pupils from the richest and poorest families. More than one million children have no access to a computer at home.

Let\’s start from the premise that this actually is a good idea. OK, what\’s the best way of getting universal access to the web for all schoolchildren?

In an interview with the Guardian, Knight signalled that the government was putting pressure on IT firms to bring down the cost of equipment if internet connections are in effect made compulsory for nearly six million children.

Erm, no, that\’s probably not it.

I\’m rather out of date but I think you can get access for £10 a month or so? Great, add £2.50 to the child credit for every first child (we already have different amounts for first and further children, don\’t we?) and tell parents that they\’ve got to have said net access. Problem solved.

The only problem with this is that while it might be cheaper, more sensible and more efficient, it doesn\’t allow ministers to look good while sticking it to the capitalists: it also makes clear, because it has to be paid for from taxation, what the real cost is. Can\’t have that now, can we? People actually knowing what the cost of something is?

Can someone explain this a little more to me?

In 2004/05, MoD civil servants bought a set of paintings by Zil Hoque called Nimbus I, II, III, IV at a cost of £160,000.

They also bought a set of four paintings by Louise Cattrell – Eyrie, Aerial, Tempest and Keep – that cost £72,000, all excluding VAT.

Now, I could understand there being a central art budget, one which is then apportioned out to the various departments. Justified perhaps by saying that something has to hang on the walls and why not support modern art while we\’re about it? That wouldn\’t be a justification in my eyes of course, but I can see how it would pass muster with those making the rules.

Is that actually what is the case?

Might I suggest something a little cheaper? I\’m told that all museums have vastly more art than they can actually show: they\’ve got basements full of stuff that never sees the light of day. Why not simply sprinkle some of that on the walls for the delectation of our servants: we\’ll keep the cash for ourselves, thanks very much.

Apologies, but this is rather a red curtain of blood moment:

In a New Year message to NHS staff, the Prime Minister indicates people may have to fulfil new "responsibilities" in order to establish their entitlement to care.

What is the snot gobbling fist clunker on about now? Responsibilities? Establishing an entitlement to care?

Is being forced at gunpoint to pay for it every working day of ones\’ life no longer enough?

Teachers are leaving the profession in increasing numbers, with a quarter of a million no longer working in schools, according to figures published by the Conservatives yesterday.

w00t w00t!

So we\’re training too many teachers, which means we get to close down a few of the teacher training colleges!

Great, anyone got a list?

Glorious Tractor Production is up again Comrades!

Targets intended to cut long waits in hospital Accident and Emergency units have cost the NHS in England £2 billion over the past five years, an assessment of healthcare information has concluded.

The extra costs come from patients who are in danger of having to wait more than four hours in A&E – the target limit – and are admitted to hospital “just in case”. Many are later discharged the same day, suggesting they had no real need to be admitted, with today – Christmas Eve – having the highest proportion of patients sent out on the day of admission.

Primary care trusts have to pay as much as £1,000 per admission, compared with about £100 for a patient treated in A&E. So the costs of admitting a patient – even for less than a day – are large.

Data collected by the CHKS Group, an independent provider of healthcare information, suggest that over the past five years, about two million extra patients were admitted to hospital through A&E units in England.

The way they\’ve collected the statistics across the different nations of the UK seems to show that they\’re correct. My, how lucky we are to have such sensible people attempting to direct, in detail, 1.3 million people from the centre!

There are legitimate arguments for this:

Billions of pounds are being spent on schools in deprived districts in Labour strongholds at the expense of pupils in more affluent areas, new figures show.

Precisely because Labour does best in deprived areas, and deprived areas need more to spend on education.

Having been even handed about it, let me say that I don\’t actually believe it. It\’s part and parcel with the distribution of health spending (remember when it was Labour held marginals that weren\’t getting local services cut?). It\’s actually exactly what we would expect politicians to do: spend money on their supporters at the expense of those who do not support them in order to tie in their votes. Almost a version of gerrymandering, the creation of client states.

Labour has more than doubled education spending since 1997 from £29 billion to £63.7 billion this year.

But there are already fears that the money has not been well spent.

Gosh, there\’s a surprise. The important lesson still hasn\’t sunk in: it\’s not how much you spend, it\’s how you spend it. According to one or other of the various such rankings, Finland and Sweden have the best education systems in the OECD. They both have variations on a voucher system for education funding.

This might not be a coincidence, you know?

GORDON BROWN has set himself on a collision course with the legal establishment over plans to give civil servants and government agencies the power to remove people’s passports without going through the courts.

Senior legal figures, including two former attorney-generals and a lord chief justice, have expressed deep concern about preparations to adopt new powers to confiscate passports. They warn the government not to use reform of prerogative powers as an excuse to force through a “serious” curtailment of long-standing freedoms.

They have attacked proposals in the child maintenance bill, now going through Parliament, to allow civil servants to prevent errant fathers who refuse to support their children from travelling abroad.

Let me get this straight, a clerk in the Child Support Agency (which, as we know, is so terribly efficient in itself) has the right to take your passport away? That is the proposal?

Crippled Jesu C on a crutch, what will they think of next? I think we\’d all be wise to take William Buiter\’s advice, collect as many nationalities and passports as you can.

A quite splendid use of the money extorted from you at gunpoint, don\’t you think?

The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, is to buy a new Gulfstream presidential jet for £24m after convincing MPs that his £16m plane bought seven years ago is out of date.

The UK is of course pumping £700 million into Uganda over the next decade to reduce poverty. No, of course, none of that will pay for this plane, none at all: except of course that money is fungible.

And Musuveni is actually one of the better of the African leaders for this sort of thing.