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Social Media and the Future of Higher Education

2011-11-30T15:44:00.000-08:00

Social media are not going to enhance higher education- they are going to completely transform the relationship between student and teacher and shift the balance of power in the education system.
Social media such as Facebook have already changed many of the aspects of how we relate to other people, who we can form relationships with and the types of things we share with them. Many businesses are now using social media to interact with their customers in different ways and use them as brand ambassadors or answer their concerns and complaints in a much more direct way. Entertainers and writers are also using social media to interact with their public in more direct ways. The other day I got a direct tweet from an author whose books I read in repsonse to a tweet I made about the work of another author. That type of interaction would have been highly unlikely a few years ago.
The education industry ought to be at the forefront of embracing new technologies. Sadly this has not been the case and I think the reason for this is fear about how transformative and disruptive the technology is. However, HE institutions will have to use social media or suffer serious consequnces.
To illustrate why I think this will happen I will give the example of downloads and the music industry. In 1994 I participate in an amazing concert in London by the artist Todd Rundren. The concert tied in to his No World Order album, an interactive piece of music released on a computer disc and an interactive cd which aloowed the listener to make their own remixes of the material and control the mood tempo etc of the music. For those of you are, like me, social work professionals this could be looked at as a form of personalisation- the listener being in control rather the artist. Rundgren figured that new technology would completely change the balance of power and control between the producer and consumer and that neither artist nor publisher would be able to control how people experienced or distributed music. Rather than fight this, he embraced its potential. The concert itself was completely interactive with members of the audience being allowed on stage to dance and play instruments. At one of the shows in America he apparently decided to leave the stage for a while and be partof the audience while audience members ran the show- playing his songs.A little later before the emergence of Napster, he tried to interest record companies in releasing legal downloads. They refused point blank stating that it would interfere with their CD sales. Now of course there are no CD sales and most of these record companies are in bankrupcy or liquidation.
A similar fate faces many HE institutions if they do not start modernising now.
Two forces are currently facing HE in the UK. One is the threat of competition from the private sector who are going to be able to offer degrees. The other is a fall off of student numbers because of the high tuition fees which will be charged as a result of these fees being moved from a loan/taxpayer split to being completely financed by loans to the student. Social media can either offer a vehicle for the first threat or a way for Universities to stave off the second threat if they embrace it.
Currently higher edication is one of the few industries which operate in much the same way as it did in ancient Greece. Certainly, new technologies such as Blackboard have been introduced. However, they are always considered to be in support of traditional forms of learning rather than a replacement for them. Furthermore, the quality of the technology used in education is inferior to that which people enjoy in other areas of their lives. I know of lecturers who have successfully carried out much more lively debates with their students on Twitter than they have managed to in the discussuion forums on Blackboard. People are used to frictionless connectivity and so an interface which requires people to navigate through about 6 pages before finding that nobody is online is not going to be very popular.
Social media have the opportunity to connect educators instantly with their students and also connect them and their students to a wider body of authors, educators, students in other institutions and (for social workcourses) the wider public and people who use social services. They also have the ability to connect HE instituions with all of their former allumni and other partners such as employers, providers of placements etc. If a tool like Facebook or Twitter was offered to HE institutions for the first time they would proabably be willing to pay a lot of money for it. And yet these tools are available now and are completely free. Why are they not being taken advantage of?
The issue for many educators is the lack of control which they will have in these debates and discussions or what ultimately is done with the content if it is available to outside parties. However all of these outside parties are stakeholders of education and they have a legitimate right to take part in debates about good poractice without their participation being stagemanaged and controlled. Students also have the right to take advantage of the educational opportunities available to them through free interaction with others.
Certainly, there will be risks assocated with embracing new media. However, these risks are overwhelmingly trumped by the lost opportunities from not engaging with them.
For HE providers the greatest risk in the next 10 years will come from new private competitors. These competitors will not have the overheads which Universities currently have. They will be lean operations using high quality syndicated material delivered by podcasts and backed up with instant contact to tutors through mobiles and skype. Students will connect with and meet each other through social media. These institutions will focus their resources on aspects of the student experience which add value (flexibility, accessibility, interactivity) and ignore those aspects which are not perceived as adding value.
If you think this sounds far fetched then I suggest that you read the article 'Disrupting Higher Education' which appeared in Harvard Business Review July/August 2011 issue. It states: "State institutions are gradually being defunded by taxpayers. Liberal Arts Colleges are struggling for survival. Upstart for-profit colleges are, despite mis-steps on the rise." Essentially, the changes I am describing are already ocuring in the USA. Prestigious Ivy League Universities are able to retain their traditional approach but HE institutions which do not have their USPs are being overtaken by ditital-savvy alternatives. According to the article tuition fees are on a downward trajectory as these new hi- tech forms of education are much cheaper. I would suggest that the coalition Govt in the U.K. has deliberately transferred the burden of fees onto students so that they will drive prices down. This change is partnered with a liberalisation of who can actually provide HE. While fees remain high this will provide opportunities for private institutions to come in under existing market prices and still make profits.
Existing HE providers cannot afford to look on at social media and tut tut about loss of control,loss of privacy etc. Young people have already weighed up these issues and concluded that benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Consumers made a similar calculation in relation to music downloads and decided that they did not want their choice restricted, even though this often meant breaking the law before the advent of legal downloads.
It need not be a bad outcome, however, for our 'non-Ivy League' Universities. They do have real strengths in terms of their engagement with local communities and local industries, and in their reputation for social inclusion and expanding opportunities. However, they will need to build on these strengths by modernising how they do business, reducing costs, and embravcing technologoies which will enhance their students' experience of HE.
Social media will radically transform the relationship between lecturer and student. They will blur the boundary of where the classroom starts and finishes, who takes part in a student's educational experience and who holds the expertise and power. This is its stength and a challenge to engage with rather than something to fear.
I am very excited about this. I did, after all, go into education to help people to think for themselves and continue my own experience as a learner.
Every other aspect of our lives has changed radically as a result of technology-education just has some catching up to do-but the psychological changes and the change in power relationships will be more profound than the changes in technology.

Mutualisation and Privitisation of the Public Services

2011-11-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

David Cameron is quoted on the Independent website today as stating that he wants to take 1 million workers out of the public sector and into employee owned mutuals. Should we be afraid-very afraid- or is this a wonderful opportunity?
Well, in better times, under different circumstances it might be a good opportunity- However, in the present climate I am very skeptical.
The theory behind mutuals is that if workers are independent of large scale public bodies then they can be freed uo to be more creative and less cautious. Also, since the workers are essentially working for themselves they will be more committed and more willing to pitch in to get things done- relationships with service users will improve and sickness absence will go down. There are, apparently, examples of this happening.
However,there are a number of issues which should, rightly make employees cautious about any transfer of their employment rights.

1. Trust. The present Govt has been hostile towards the public sector-rhetoric about dependency cultures and gold-plated pensions reveal a cynicism about the public sector and the work which people in the public sector do.

2. Previous form on privitisation. Previous bouts of privitisation under the conservatives and new labour have been ways of achieving wage reductions by the back door. Services which are contracted out by local authorities such as home care are done so at hourly rates so low that they could only be achieved by paying the workers very low wages. By contracting out these services local Govt can avoid being accused of paying low wages since the workers are not on their payroll. The cost of human services is largely made up of labor costs so the only way of significantly reducing the cost of services is by paying workers less. Workers have some grounds for being suspicious that any transfer in employment will involve cutting back their pay and conditions.

3. The present economic situation. This is not a good time to be launching any type of business, mutual or otherwise whose main customer is the Government or customers who are paid for by the Government. In times of expansion, we might have confidence that there would be continued and/or increasing demand for our services. A period of contraction in the public sector as a result of swingeing cuts is not the best time to be starting any new venture- even if it is a continuation of an ecisting service. At the moment many voluntary sector and private sector providers are going to the wall. Not because they are inefficient or bloated but simply because public services are being pared back to the bone and then cut even more. The present eurozone crisis can only make things worse. The Government is making progress on the deficit and as it is still committed to deficit reduction worse cuts lie ahead.

4. Lack of security. Mutuals may intially win contracts to provide services but there is no guarantee that they will these contracts again when they come uo for renegotiation several years later. Workers may find that these lose out to another mutual or a private provider and find themselves forced to work for a new employer under poorer conditions. They could be moving into privitisation by the back door.

5. Lack of incentives. Running a private business such as a restaurant, a shop or samll manufacturing business involves high risk. A large percentage of businesses close down often with their owners losing everything they own. The only reason that people take on such a high risk is that if they are successful then they (and/or their shareholders)will reap large rewards. Public sector employment, by contrast is normally a low risk undertaking. The worst that can happen is that you are made redundant and hopefully you will find another job quickly. The only downside is that you are not paid very much. Social enterprises and mutuals offer the worst of both types of endeavour. They offer the high risks of private enterprise with the low returns of public sector employment. Owners of public interest companies (social enterprises) are not allowed to sell the business which they have built up at a profit or take out more than a certain amout out of the business relative to the turnover. I don't know what restrictions exist for mutuals but I doubt very much that they will receive any additional recompense for shouldering the added risk and responsibility or the worry and strain it will put on their families. Bankers get obscene profits for taking risks with other people's money. Public sector workers are expected to accept a pat on the back as reward for putting their own careers and finances on the line.

6. Lack of flexibility. If people in a public service form a mutual what do they do if they see a new way to grow their services or invest to improve how they deliver their services? I read a story recently about an employee owned mutual provider in the health service. The article suggested that they only had one months salary for all the workers in the bank at any one time. How can such an oirganisation invest in improving its business model to cope with change or expand what it offers? Private businesses can borrow money from banks or the stock market to expand or change their focus. What opportunities will there be for mutuals to raise money to grow and change? Will they be frozen in time, forced to continue in the same form as they were when they were first spun off, until the service they offer is no longer appropriate to the times? Maybe I don't fully understand mutuals but nothing I have read so far has answerted these questions for me.

7. Are mutuals and social enterprises the right business models for public services? I suspect the Government is pushing these models forward becuse they are considered more politically acceptable than outright privitisation. In taking this path the Government could be headed for even more trouble in the long term. Most people who work in health and social care have no aspiration to be business owners of any kind. They come to work because they enjoy working with people and there is nothing wrong with that.
Ministers are constantly trotting the example of the John Lewis partnership. The reason for this is that there are few co-operatives who are market leaders in their field. There are a growing number of successful companies who have more level structures and more democrative and participative types of management- but that is not the same as being employee owned.
I strongly suspect the mutualism agenda is a fig leaf of repectability for privitisation rather than a genuine belief that it is the best way forward.

Anyway- that was my slighly jaded take on mutuals and social enterprises. Its only a personal opinion and perhaps there is a lot I just don't know aboiut mutuals and social enterprises. I supect I probably know, more, however, than many of the poor public sector workers who will have to make decvisons about mocving their employment if Cameron gets his way.

Maybe I will be proved wrong and there will be lots of very happy people celebrating the day they got spun off from the council/NHS.What do you think?

Are you Part of the 'Dependency Culture'?

2011-11-08T15:16:00.000-08:00

I read an interesting article in today's Financial Times. I am probably one of the few social workers who regularly reads this esteemed publication. My interest probably stems from two factors. Firstly, my background in accountancy and economics in a former existence. Secondly, I don't like reading newspapers that tell me what I ought to be thinking even if I might generally agree with what they are saying. This is the main reason why I don't tend to read the Guardian unless I have to.The FT sticks to the facts and when it does give an opinion it is based on logical analysis- not prejudice, preconceived ideas, or a desire to please a particular crowd.
Please read it sometime-you might be surpised.
Anyway the piece today is 'Benefit cuts set to carve a divisive path.' The article concerns the potential damage to local economies in the north by the Government's decision to cut back on incapacity benefit. It look at the system of medical testing, cuts to benefit and also the meagre chances of people whom have been on benefits for years of actually getting a job in hard pressed northern cities.The article is reasonably sympathetic and addresses some important elements of the incapacity benefit issue.
What I want to draw attention to specifically in this post is a comment by the Leader of Barnsley council in the article. He is paraphrased as saying that it is vital that the town 'moves away from a dependency culture where half the working population rely on the state, either as public sector workers or benfits claimants.'
Since the article uses parapharasing rather than direct quotes I can't be sure exactly how this was expressed by the council leader. However, the sentiment- that working for the public sector is equivalent to claiming benefits and that both are a form of dependency is one which I hear increasingly and one which makes me very angry. I don't just hear it from conservative politicians- I even hear people from the north who work for the public sector saying that we are too 'dependent' on the public sector for employment. Taking up a public sector job ought to be seen as a way of serving one's community- and indeed many people in public service very much see it that way. However, within this particular discourse it is seen as sign of fecklessness at best and moral turpitude at worst. The reason there are/were a lot of public sector jobs in the north partly came as a result of the previous Government deciding to relocate jobs out of London to save money and to provide employment in areas devastated by the loss of traditional industries at the hands of previous Tory governments. People who took up these posts did so in good faith and with an intention of doing a worthwhile job well. Working long hours as a nurse, a social worker or a civil servant is not a form of dependency.
We curently have a form of rhetoric which suggests that only people who work in the private sector represent the real economy. This is a distortion of the truth. From this point of view a barman is doing a worthwhile job whereas a nurse is a drain on the economy. The discourse which suggests that public sector employment is a form of dependency serves the political purpose of greasing the wheels for attacking people's pensions and conditions of employment. Advocates of discourse analysis regard speech as a form of action- it has a purpose beyond the actual surface meaning of the words.
With regard to benefit claimants- many people on incapacity benefit ended up on this benefit as a result of attempts by earlier governments to reduce unemployment figures by having them declared unfit for work. Having them now declared fit for work fits the new political purpose of reducing spending on benefits. Many very vulnerable people will experience a great deal of distress as they are treated as political footballs.
We can't control the messages that politicians send out in their rhetoric. We might want to challenge them, however, through letters pages and social media. What we certainly should not do is swallow the rhetoric and start using it ourselves.
Serving the public is something to be proud of and people who claim beneiofts ought ot be the subject of persecution. Neither deserve to be labelled as part of a 'dependency culture'.

Access to Social Networking is a Human Rights Issue

2011-11-08T10:23:00.000-08:00

In my job as a social work lecturer I had a conversation the other day about Facebook and employment. Several of the students told me they had become aware of problems associated with use of Facebook and people's employment. One was a situation in which someone had made a comment which might have been seen to be critical of the persons employer. In this case the employer had not been mentioned on Facebook. I think the employer had a legitimate issue about it not being appropriate to put info about one's employment on Facebook. However, I think their response was disproportionate to the employee's error oif judgement. More concerning, was the fact that a number of people who work in social care are apparently being told that they should not have Facebbok accounts at all. A certain amount of caution and use of privacy settings is appropriate due to the nature of social work and the fact that making too much of one's own information publicly accessible is a potential risk for employees. There is also the fact that people should not discuss details of their work or their attitudes to it in a forum where they (and by extension their employer and/or service users) can be identified.
However, nothwithstanding the above, banning people from using Facebook and social networking is a serious violation of people's civil liberties and could have serious negative consequences for their ability to socialise and have a normal life outside work., As the number of people with Facebbok accounts mushrooms it is becoming a mainstream way of communicating with people. Facebook is a faster, easier and more effective way of communicating with friends than email, telephone or amy other communication platform. It allows people to talk in real time, share photos, share one's present location, arrange outings, share photos,inform large numbers of people news at the same time, share conversations and leave comments,and act as a portal to other platforms such as this blog. Even more importantly it allows all these things to be done at the same time with minimal hassle. It is genuinely frictionless communication. It has great potential for business and professional networking which so far has hardly been exploited. It is a better vehicle for sharing examples of good practice and promoting collaboration than any alternative conduits available in most businesses. On the commercial front many businesses are considering scaling down their websites in favour of using Facebook as main platform for building rlationships with their customers. For purely social purposes it allows people with similar interests to make new friends across countries and time zones and develop new communities electonically.
Much of the moral panic and technophobia surrounding Facebook relates to the perceived lack of privacy. These comments miss the point completely. Facebook is like any other form of communication- it can be as private or as public as you like. If you are standing in a busy street you can shout a message to everyone on the street or whisper a message to the person beside you. The analogy with a street, is I think very appropriate. Banning people from Facebook is like forbidding them to walk out on the street or go to the local pub. It is a form of digital house arrest. I find myself building closer links with people who use Facebook and find it more difficult to keep up with people who aren't. When people ask me about a trip or something I have been doing I find it slightly irritating that they haven't accessed the information I have put up electronically. The divide between people who use it and people who don't is going to become a new digital divide- with people who don't use social networking being more and more excluded. Being banned from social networking is a form of digital house arrest- you are banned from taking part in an important part of the social environment. It is in fact a denial of human rights to take part in the life of one's community.
Of course, eventually these social work/social care employers will have to capitulate- just as they had to in relation to accessing the internet at work. It is a shame, however, that parts of the sector has to start from a position of Luddism and fear- rather than a willingness to embrace the potential of powerful technologies.
Meanwhile I think it is just a matter of time before someone challenges the issue on a human rights basis.

Murdoch- Just How Gullible Are You

2011-07-20T00:32:00.000-07:00

Murdoch Jr and Sr and Reb Brooks made their appearances in Parliament yesterday. Far from being the necktie party that many expected, the Murdoch's have come out of this with a soaraway share price and some sympathy for a kindly old man who got pied.
Lets examine some of the ridiculous ideas which have emerged from the not very penetrating questioning.
1. THE OWNER OF ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MEDIA COMAPANIES IN THE WORLD IS DODDERY 0LD MAN WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON AROUND HIM.
This man is paid £7 million dollars a year. He is not a figurehead president for life who is paid a retainer. He is CEO and manages the company day to day. He could not retain his position if he did not have the confidence of shareholders.
He has been regularly received in Downing Street by this and a string of previous Prime Ministers.
2. MONEY JUST DISAPPEARS OUT OF THE DOOR AT NEWS INTERNATIONAL AND NOBODY KNOWS WHAT IT IS BEING PAID FOR.
We got the impression from R Brooks that journalists can simply pay anyone (by cash or some other means not yet specified) bungs for information and the Editor does not know what sort of people are being paid or what they are being paid for.
This is a highly successful company with profits in the billions. If there was really such financial lax governance it would have been cleaned out in a few days.
3. NOBODY IN NEWS INTERNATIONAL TELLS THEIR MANAGERS ABOUT SERIOUS MAL-PRACTICE THAT COULD UNDERMINE THE WHOLE COMPANY.
Rupert murdoch said that News of the World is a tiny part of his whole company as if this is a valid reason why he did not get to know about the hacking.
In a properly run company no hazard or incidence of unsafe practice from a loose carpet to a dodgy smoke detector is too small to ignore. As the recent incidents have proven, illegal and bad practice in any part of your company can get you into serious trouble. This is why in any modern public or private organisation people at all levels report anything they have serious concerns about to their superiors.
The idea that Rupert Murdoch was having phone conversations with editors and nobody thought that it was worth mentioning cases of phone hacking beggars belief.
UNDER STRICT U.S. LAW EXECUTIVES ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR CORRUPTION IN OTHER COUNTRIES BY THEIR EMPLOYEES(and can go to jail for it)EVEN IF THEY HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF IT.
This is strict law is there to ensure the highest standards of ethics and governance are present in all parts of a company. No responsible corporation can afford to ignore this law or fail to seriously address any suggestion that they may be guilty of wrongdoing. Ignorance is no defence. The idea that News Corp executives have no scrutinised every detail of this case beggars belief. THEY ARE NOT AMATUERS!!!
4. SENIOR MANAGEMENT WERE NOT AWARE THAT THEY ARE PAYING THE LEGAL EXPENSES OF A CONVICTED FELLON AND ARE NOT SURE WHETHER THEY HAVE A LEGAL OBLIGATION TO DO SO.
No comment necessary.
5.NEWS INTERNATIONAL VOLUNTARILY PAID OUT OF COURT SETTLEMENTS TO VICTIMS OF PHONE HACKING MANY TIMES THAT WHICH A COURT WOULD HAVE PAID.
In his evidence Murdoch Jr said that this was partly because if the matter had gone to court then they would have had to have paid several thousands of pounds in addition to the any pay out for the costs of the victims' solicitors. The Select Committee seemed to have accepted this. However, the whole point is that the victims did not have several hundreds of thousands of pounds legal fees because News International settled out of court. They are asking us to believe that they gave people money willingly for damages they did not sustain. We are being told that this was not hush money but rather, was a case of generosity or ignorance about what level of damages was reasonable.
6. NEWS CORP DID NOT THINK IT WAS PRUDENT TO CARRY OUT A COMPREHENSIVE INVESTIGATION AFTER SOME EVIENCE OF PHONE HACKING WAS UNCOVERED.
James Murdoch said in his evidence that they did not carry out further investigation of phone hacking because they were assured by solicitors and by the Police that there was no need to investigate further.
This is plain ridiculous. It is not up to the Police or external solicitors to tell people that there are problems in their own company. Murdoch Senior made a number of references to external governance on ethics. Boards can only advise on issues that are brought to their atttention and Police only investigate after an offence has happened and it has come to their attention. The responsibility for what went on in this company is with the Managers.

7. EDITORS DO NOT CHECK WHERE INFORMATION HAS COME FROM OR WHETHER IT'S AQUISITION IS LEGAL.
Anyone who has ever had any contact with the media will know that this is nonsense. Even the most trivial story on a local rag is checked for legality.
8. THE SENIOR MANAGEMENT OF NEWS CORP ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAS HAPPENED (DESPITE BEING PAID MILLIONS OF DOLLARS A YEAR FOR THEIR EXECUTIVE POSITIONS)AND THEY DON'T KNOW WHO IS ACTUALLY RESPONSIBLE.
Prepare for the revelation that it was the office cat wot did it.

The media attention has now refocussed on David Cameron. Much as I dislike Cameron's Govt, I don't think he has done anything that is worse than the previous 4 Prime Ministers in relation currying favour with the Murdoch media empire. In fact he has actually shown a willingness to split with the past and introduce transparency and acccountability. And this is of course this is why he will have to go- to make way for the next corporate appointee puppet.

Look at the Dow Jones. Shares in News Corp have rallied today. The invisible hand of the market understands what is happening. This would not be the case if shareholders really thought that the company was run by people who were senile or incompetent. Murdoch stock is up and Cameron stock is down and the credibility of our Police force and our Parliament have been shattered.

Sounds like good business.

Public Sector Workers Need a New Type of Strike to Win Pensions Battle

2011-06-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

Writing in The Times recently, Matthew Parish stated that public sector workers will not win the battle over changes to their pensions through striking. The basis for his view was the comments which readers have been posting on the end of online newspaper articles. I had noticed these postings myself. They are not very favourable to public sector workers. Of course people who write on newspaper websites are not necessarily representative of the wider public. However, large numbers of negative comments appear across websites representing a range of political opinions. Even articles on the Guardian website have negative postings. The coalition Government has been pumping out propaganda for ages about gold plated public pensions and it sems to have sunk into the popular consciousness. Contrast this with Greece. Their public sector workers have much more privileges than we do in the U.K. However, the population as a whole blame the Government and the banks for their problems. Please bear in mind that I am basing my observations only on news items. However, from what I can see workers in different sectors do not appear to gave turned on each other.
This lack of popular support in the U.K. is a major obstacle for public sector workers. A second obstacle is fear. Local authorities are likely to lose about a quarter of their workforces over the next four years. People are already experiencing wage freezes and are worried about their jobs. They may feel that poorer pension provision is better than no job. They may also feel that they cannot afford financially to take part in a protracted strike which may end up in defeat. Many other workers are concerned about the effect of public spending cuts on the people they work with and will not want to add to this by withdrawing services.
Then there is the Government's need to look tough. Ed Balls suggested that the Tories were spoiling for a fight and that public sector workers would be falling into a trap by striking. He is possibly right. However, he offers no suggestions for what public sector workers ought to do. Does he think they should just rollover and accept these attacks on their terms and conditions? The Labour party has no answers and no leadership for public sector workers. This is why I don't pay a political levy.
So- Is it hopeless? I would say definately not. However there needs to be new strategies.
Firstly, I feel there needs to be a change in accent to how the arguments are presented to the public. Changes in public sector pensions are just part of a larger attack on public services. This includes cuts in spending on health and social care, moves towards greater privitisation, ill-thought out health reforms and possible reductions in the responsibilities of local authorities. Unions need to make common cause with service users, patients, and the public at large. Protests on pensions needs to be part of a wider protest about cuts in services, protests against job losses etc.
Secondly, I feel that a new type of strike is needed. This would be a strike which does not have any of the chartacteristics of strikes as we know them. The type of strike I am suggesting would have no negative impacts on the public or service users. It would involve no loss of money for workers or any other type of loss. In fact, it would leave them better off. It would not require a ballot. It would not be illegal or break any laws. Anyone could join in-even people who were not in the public service or in the unions.It would however, have a very dramatic effect on the Government and the financial markets. It would result in front page headlines and send the Conservatives and their friends in the city into a spin.
So what is this strike and how would it work?
What I am suggesting is a strike on spending. One day a week every public sector worker in the country should refuse to spend any money other than their bus/train fare to work (or up to £5 worth of petrol), a pint of milk and a sandwich. We could call, this #spendingstrikethursday if we decided to do it on a Thursday. On this day public sector workers would not go shopping for clothes, groceries, books, haircuts, outings to cinema or restaurants, holiday bookings, online spending or anything else which is not essential for that day. Obviously rent, mortgage, utilities and anything on a direct debit would still be paid.
The effect of this spending strike would be a massive blow to the economic figures. The snow last winter was extimated to cost the economy £1.2 billion per day. A soending strike would have a similiar effect. Of course, some spending would just be delayed one day but much spending would not take place at all. For example nobody is going to order two days worth of coffees the next day and a lot of impulse purchases would not happen. Also,many impulse purchases would not take place. For workers the spending strike days allow them to save money to go into a war chest for their family to help get them through the recession or to save for something special. There would also be benfits for people's health from sweets and alcohol not purchased. Over time it may result in people changing lifestyle habits as they see that they can get through the day without buying lots of coffee or chocolate and that they can enjoy saving some money.
However, the biggest impact of the spending strike will be on on the Government and the city. The only thing which the coalition appear to be concerned about is how Britain is regarded by credit ratings agencies and the financial markets. A protracted spending strike of one or two days per week would blow a hole under the water in the Government's hopes for the kind of results which suggest an economic recovery. This would be front page in FT. It would also send Britain's retail and service sector (which makes up a very large part of the economy) into despair. There would be fear on the part of big business that people's habits would change permanaently and they would get less used to spending lots of money and being addicted to consumerism. Workers to wear badges stating that they were takimg part in the spending strike and they could call in at or phone places that they would normally spend money in that day to explain why they had withdrawn their purchasing power.
One possible objection to this plan would be that people might think that public sector workers were sabotaging the economy. However, the defense against this criticism is that public sector workers are just demonstrating what is going to happen when they lose their jobs or enter the retirement in poverty. Another objection is that people will not have the discipline not to spend. However, a spending strike involves a lot less hardship that going on normal strike.
Today's FT carries a story that the Bank of England is considering another round of quantitiative easing. This is a sign of desperation. It shows that Osborne's economic medicine is not working. Economic growth is in the doldrums. #spendingstrikethursday could push economic growth figures over the edge into double dip recession territory. The Government would fear it a lot more than a normal strike. Workers have nothing at all to lose. Anyone who supports public services can join in. It could become part of a wider protest against current Govt policies and form part of a move to unite workers in different sectors and industries against the politics of austerity. After all, an increase in public spending could involve increased investment in public sector construction projects and other measures to get people back into work- so there is something in it for proivate sector workers to join in and demand a change in course by the Government.
If you like this idea and think it has potential then tweet a link to this article, tweet about #spendingstrikethursday,suggest the idea to your union rep, talk about it on Facebook etc.
Please let me know what you think of this idea and leave a comment.

Important Lesson From the Southern Cross care home crisis

2011-06-05T10:53:00.000-07:00

The current crisis at Southern Cross is a cause for great concern and has been the subject of much debate. It has come at a time when there is huge concern about the health and social care sector being opened up to more competition,concern about the quality of care in residential care and hospitals and concern about NHS Hospital Trusts in financial crisis.
Unfortunately (though predictably) much of the debate about these important issues involves simplistic arguments about the unsuitability of applying the 'profit motive' to social care. These arguments ignore the fact that the majority of people involved in private sector social care (including most of the managers) are employees and never see any profit. Like their public sector counterparts they are likely to be motivated by wanting to provide a good service to the people they care for. Certainly, they could forced to cut corners by owners to save money- but this is equally true of people working for cash strapped public services.
There ARE reasons to be concerned about the private sector involvement in social care. However, to examine them requires a much more nuanced approach than that on display in some parts of the media.
The current problems with Southern Cross would appear to derive from the business model which the company has been saddled with since 2007.
Southern Cross was purchased in 2004 for £162 million by an American private equity firm called Blackstone. It was floated in 2007 on the stockmarket with a valuation of £423 million. The business model was called sale and leaseback. The company would sell off its valuable property assets, (ie the buildings which housed the care homes) to property investors. These investors apparently include the Qatar Investment Authority and other wealthy landlords who were guaranteed steeply rising returns. The careccompany would then lease back the properties from their rich landlords with 30 year leases which required them to pay ever increasing amounts of money in rent each year. This arrangement assumed that the demand for residential care would increase year on year and that local authorities would be willing to continue to pay increasing amounts of money for residential care.
The money that the company made from the property sales was used as finance for the purchase of additional care homes which were then in turn sold and leased back. As long as property values kept rising and there was the ongoing income from new residents the flow of money continued.
Blackstone made a 300% return on investment from this deal.Four executives at Southern Cross sold their entire holding of the company in December 2007 when the share price was £5.50 per share netting them personally a combined £35 million. The share price plunged just 6 months later and stood at £0.063 per share on 3rd June 2011.
Now the company cannot afford to go on paying the steep rents and local authorities are facing the prospect of having to rehome large numbers of vulnerable older in the event of a collapse.
The Southern Cross collapse was a result of high risk business strategy which had reaped huge profits for a small number of people and a private equity firm. The model was vulnerable to economic and political changes. In any case it would have been cheaper to have funded expansion from loans than from sale and leaseback of peperty.
The long term fallout from this is going to place a great deal of anxiety for vulnerable older people and their relatives, local authorities, council tax payers and current investors.
This is likely to be especially felt in the north east where the care home chain has a strong presence. So far central Govt has shown very little leadership. Their localism agenda seeming to allow them to bail out of any responsibility for anything which they consider to be a 'local' issue. But Southern Cross is not a local issue. It is a regional and a national issue. It requires a national solution and new strategies in dealing with issues of private sector involvement in public sector provision.
I believe the lessons from Southern Cross are as follows:
1. Private sector involvement is not a panacea for the high costs of providing decent health and social care.Research by the Financial Times (4th June 2011 p2)suggests that PFI intiatives are imposing unstainably high costs on a number of hospital trusts accross the country. PFI was once thought to be an easy way iof raising money for capital projects but it is now being realised that PFI schemes have huge long term cost implications.
There is currently thought being given to new methods of funding of services such as social impact bonds. The advocates of these funding mechanisms suggest that they will offer reduced risk to the public sector and benefits for investors. However, all of these funding models seem to work on the assumption that it is possible to simultaneously save public money and generate good returns for investors. How these two objectives can co-exist has never been explained to my satisfaction and I challenge anyone to explain how this can happen.
2. Greater regulation and oversight is needed of private involvement in health and social care. This is needed not just in oversight of the quality of care but also in the business models used by providers. The Govt is rightly seeking to reduce some of the pre-qualification checks required of small and medium entrprises in bidding for public sector work. These checks on financial solvency etc. are often far too onerous for people bidding for small pieces of short term work. However, for the long term commitment required of companies who are going to care for vulnerable people, a higher degree of scrutiny is needed. Central Govt needs to act so that the interests of the city for short term profit do not overide the needs of vulnerable people for high quality and secure care. The Southern Cross business model should not have been allowed to operate.
3. A greater understanding of business models and finance is needed for all people involved in social care from social workers to senior managers. As long as local and central Govt are responsible for care of older people they will have to keep a careful watch on who is providing care and how it is being provided. It is not good enough just assume that existing regulatory mechanisms are sufficient.
4. Providing services to the public sector is a high risk endeavour. Many local authority staff are being encouraged to set up social entrprises and co-ops at a time when public sector bodies are cash strapped. These workers should be aware of the risks of being in busiess and the hazards which political and economic change hold for suppliers to the public sector. The Southern Cross business model was built on assumptions about the continued flow of new customers and year on year rises in charges. These have turned out to be ill-founded assumptions.
5. The old adage about not investing in anything you don't understand should apply here. I doubt that so many investors would have put money into the Southern Cross flotation of they understood the business model or just how risky it was. It is likely that the investors included pension funds. British institutional investors seem to be asleep at the wheel a lot. The fact that the executives sold their entire holdings shortly after the flotation should have raised some eyebrows.
6. A greater degree of financial literacy is needed amongst academics and social care managers. As this blog has hopefully illustrated the issues behind the Southern Cross debacle are complex. The need for debate is not served by reducing the issues to the level of public sector=good vs private sector=bad. Involvement of the private sector in health and social care is undoubtedly here to stay. Arguments about the viability of desireability of individual situations needs to be based on their own merits and not on prejudice towards the business sector. Neither are the needs of vulnerable people well served by the view that the private sector is always more efficient or better value for money than public sector provision. Whatever benefits have been achieved in the past by using Southern Cross as a provider are likely to be outweighed by the costs of a bail-out or a disasterous bankrupcy situation.

Southern Cross, the problems associated with PFI and the fragile state of many social care providers in the current austerity period suggest that private sector involvement in social care involves high levels of risk for both Government and investors alike. It is certainly not a panacea or easy solution for covering the rising costs of social care. Critically, it can involve high risks for the most vulnerable people in our society.

Factual information for this post was obtained from articles by Simon Mundy, Sarah O'Conner, Sally Gainsbury, Nicholas Timmins, Sarah Gordon, Jim Pickard and Elizabeth Rigby in the Financial Times on 1st and 4th June 2011. Opinions are my own and do not necessarilly reflect those of any body whom I have worked for or been associated with now or in the past.

Data in Today's FT reveal that reduction in health and social care spending is a serious threat to the economy as a whole

2011-05-11T01:49:00.000-07:00

A report in today (11/05/11) reveals that the UK economy is in more serious danger of stagnating than was earlier thought. This is because the most productive sectors are the one's which are contracting the most. Notably the financial services sector is deleveraging at a rapid rate due to the current risk averse climate and the need for retrenchment.
Of interest, however, is the role of the health and social care sector. The report on p3 shows that this sector grew at 28.9% in the 2000-2008 period. Although this slowed to growth of 8.6% in the last quarter of 2010 it was labelled by the FT as the most recession proof area of the economy. This will now however, have changed markedly in the light of public sector cuts with very rapid reductions in spend in social care and reduction in health care in real terms.
Signs that the service sector improved in the first qurter of 2011 are now thought to be due to last minute run off spending from Govt depts before the cuts.
Allied to this is the policy of reducing central control on how public services are managed, organised and measured. Many experienced managers have been lost from health and social care during recent rounds of cutbacks. Another article on p4 of the same FT raises doubts about whether a Govt can bring about rapid service transformation and cost reduction in an environment of reducing management infrasturcture. Service transformation and intelligent cost reduction (as opposed to indiscriminate salami slicing) require skills such as project management and lean management. They need good accurate data and good managers to drive forward innovation and change.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that waiting lists are increasing in the face of the removal of targets.
KPMG are quoted on p4 in a separate article as saying that companies which supply the public sector are on a 'knife edge'.
The Govt is in serious danger of failing in its programme of public sector reform and seriously damaging the economy in the process.

A Very Middle Class Recession

2011-03-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

There is a very interesting article in today's (21st March 2011) Financial Times. It is about the so called 'squeezed middle' of the U.K. Specifically it uses the term 'Austerity Britain's ultimate losers'to describe middle class public sector workers in the north of England. It gives a case study of a Newcastle City Council worker who is having to re-apply for her current Policy job. Sadly I am very familiar with the situation of people like her. I am doing a regional job and daily meet people who are losing their job, having to re-apply for their job, having their job downgraded or who are simply worried and uncertain. Some local authorities have put all their staff on redundancy notice so that they can later decide who to actually make redundant. As you can imagine this will not be doing much for staff morale or indeed sonsumer confidence- more on that later. It is not just local authority jobs which are being lost.Regional bodies are going or shedding staff including most of the staff at Government Office North East (G.O.N.E.). Agencies are awash with highly skilled middle age public sector workers. There are few new private sector jobs which can mop up all these public sector employees. A public sector manager is going to be overqualified for a job at Starbucks.
Most of these workers will be people who have devoted their whole career to public service, some because it was the best use of their talents or seemed like a good career and many because they also care passionately about public service. Unfortunately their job worries are being compounded by a campaign in rags such as the Daily Mail to characterise such people as bureauocrats with 'non jobs'. This tactic- together with the campaign against 'gold plated' public sector pensions are part of a deliberate strategy by the coalition and thge right wing press to poison the general public against public sector workers and soften people up to prevent them resisting job cuts.
There is a particularly nasty element to it. In the early days of the colaition Norman Tebbit wrote a sinister piece in The Times (I think) in which he said that front line nurses and social workers who read The Express had nothing to fear. Rather it was The Guardian reading classes who should be afraid of the coming cuts. This is of course not altogether true. All parts of the public sector will face massive cuts in pay, stafffing and conditions. However, the present Government seems to reseve a particular scorn for the the white collar part of the public sector workforce. I am not a huge fan of The Guardian but I probably fit into the demographic that Tebbit wants to tackle- bleeeding heart middle class liberal types who are interested in social issues and who work in Government or not for profit. There is an element to this which is of a kind of class war of the right wing upper classes against the left wing middle classes.
If one was inclined towards conspiracy theories one might wonder whether these workers need to be eliminated because they represent an intellectual buffer zone between the front line and senior management and therefore could be a barrier to rampant privitisation. However, I think the real reason is proabably that the present Government are incredibly niaive and don't realise how difficult it is going to be to achieve the widescale reforms and transformation they want to bring about in the public sector without any kind of middle management and without many of the senior managers who are going.
There is a huge brain drain currently going on in the public sector with many experienced people leaving the workforce for good. Some are taking early retirement. I know of one council manager who is buying a newsagent and another who is buying a sandwich shop. Interestingly, I don't know any who are setting up businesses to supply the public sector.
In the north east the public sector crisis has major implications for the wider economy. In some North East towns public sector workers make up almost 50% of the workforce. People who think they may lose their jobs become very risk averse about big purchases such as a new car or recarpeting their house. When I work at home I get a new type of hawker round the doors- People from up-market kitchen showrooms, roofing contractors, you name it - selling door to door with special offers. They deserve points for trying to make sales but it also smacks of desperate times. In the north east much of the middle class is accounted for pubclic sector managers. As these people become worried about their finances it will spell bad news for the housing market and falling house prives will erode confidence even more.
The Thatcher Government devastated the working class communities of the north east. The coalition are hell bent on detroying the North East's middle class.

This is my first blog in about a year. I am going to write another soon about my experiences in the local Govt. sector over the past year. I promise it will be a lot more chearful than this one. I am going back to the higher education sector on 1st April and I am going to try to blog daily from then.

Remembering Skippy

2010-03-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

If you are my sort of age then you may have watched the adventires of Skippy the Bush Kangeroo as a child. Apparently there was a kind of Skippy the next generation in the 1980s. However, I think that version was short lived and quickly forgotten. The 1960s Skippy was about a boy and his pet kangeroo who lived with his father (a park ranger) on a nature reserve in the Australian bush.
I got a nostalgic reminder of Skippy a few weeks ago when I was channel hopping (no pun intended) absent mindedly. One of the BBC channels was showing a Skippy documentry. I tuned in and was immedialty engrossed. They talked about how Skippy strange vocal clicking language was developed. Apparently real kangeroos don't make any kind of noise like this but they felt some sort of vocalisation was needed to imply that Skippy was communicating to and listening to humans interactions. Before shooting 'talking scenes' Skippy would be fed somethign which would require chewing and was then her 'voice' was dubbed on. Then they explained Skippy's amazing dexterity. Apparently a pair of kangeroo legs were used for close ups where Skippy apeared to be lifting or manipulating objects. Skippy did a fair bit of animal sleuthing and sometimes had to secrete important evidence in her pouch. Most amazing of all was a clip showing Skippy sitting in fronty of a set of drums- the artificial paws were manipulated in front of her to make it look like she was playing the drums.
The documetry did dig up some dirt on Skippy, however, -well on the pervy camera crew. Apparently during breaks in filming they would shoot up-skirt shots of the female guest stars. A compilation of this footage was shown sugggesting that did rather a lot of this.
The documentry went into some deep psychological and sociological territory. It was banned in some scandanavian countries because they thought that seeing animals with impossible levels of intelligence would be psychologically harmful for children.
For Australians Skippy was remarkable because it wasd the first Australian programme to be shown widely across the world and it showed the beauty of the Australian countryside to the worls with some excellent cinematography.
Germaine Greer considered the fact that the child companion of Skippy lived in completely adult domiated world at the ranger station and had no friends his own age to interact with. This experience was paralleled by the young actor who played him. There was also discussion of the the treatment of women in the show. Generally girls were the but of jokes, getting frightened by bush animals and not very competent.
Skippy did show some very progressive social credentials however, in relation to aboriginal people. At a time when Aboriginies were fighting for basic civil rights, they were portrayed realistically and sympathetically in a number of episides of Skippy. There were some positive messages about valuing diversity and equality between peoples.
No mention was made of what hapopened to the original Skippy though I understand that she was stuffed and can be seen in a Skippy museum somewhere. If you really want to experience the Skippy phenomenon first hand then it is available on a set of dvds packed with extras. Even I amn't nerdy enough to have them but they could be a good pouchfiller for someone you know.

Meeting David Hewson

2010-03-23T15:59:00.001-07:00

We all have preconceptions about what our heroes will be like in real life. Sometimes they are just what we expect- Harlan Ellison was just as argumentative, opinionated and feisty as I imagined, Isaac Asimov had the gravitas which you expect from a distinguished scientist and author, Todd Rundgren was as fun to chat and chill out with as you would expect. David Hewson was another matter, however. If you are not familaiar with his work -they tend to be dark, violent, fast paced and sometimes gory novels set in historic tourist cities such as Rome, Venice and Madrid. Hewson clearly relishes his research. He spend weeks living in apartments in the centre of Rome or wherever his next novel is to be set, finding out about local life and local legends. We often recognise bars and places which he refers to because we also like chilling out in apartments in Rome and doing things off the beaten tourist trail. Hewsons novels resemble our holiday settings, apart from the brutal murder scenes of course- although we did see a motor cyclist knocked down by a car on one holiday- it took the ambulance 40 minutes to get to him. If this is how they deal with an emergency in downtown Rome I would not like to see the response to a deadly snakebite in the Tuscan countryside.
Anyway I am digressing. Hewson's novels are real page turners and once started they cannot be put down. When I went to see Hewson last month on a 'meet the public' event in Gateshead I expected hewson himself to be a dynamic, driven individual like hs characters. In person, however, he was rather dry, downbeat and a bit crusty. I got the impression that he was very ill at ease meeting his public. He did a bit of reading from his latest book and answered some questions from the audience. Most of the questions were rather ill inspired and I don't think the questioners had actually read any of his books. An example as 'Do you uase the internet for research?' Hewson's answer was equally uninspired, trotting out the usual cliche that you have to be careful about the validity of things on the internet. Just once I would like someone to say that you can't trust half of what is in mainstreamn books and newspapers and at least the internet levels the playing field for ordinary citizens to share their voice with the world. I managed to get a question in about his use of the pagan deity Mithras in one of his novels. poor Mithras had all his best bits stolen by Christianity and is all but forgotten now. There are some excellent Mithraia in Rome at San Clemente and Osita Anticca (the latter can bst be appreciated by scrambling over bits of ruins and descending into underground chambers- bring a torch out and watch that no custodians are on the look out
Hewson did tell an amusing anecdote about a writers convention which he attended in America. This involved meeting other writers (which he probably thought there were rather too many of )and the public and reading between the lines I think his US publisher probably twisted his arm behind his back to get him there.
What really disgusted Hewson, however, was an incident which took place in a lift at the convention. He got into a conversation with a woman in the lift who clained to be a writer. Hewson asked her what sort of stories she wrote and she said 'cat mysteries'. Hewson had apparently just about fallen over. However, his agent was later to tell him that apparently cats who solve crimes are becoming a very popular sub-genre especially in the USA.
When I met Hewson individually at the end I explained that the crime busting animal genre has antecedents such as DC comics' Detective Chimp. I don't think I succeded in raising his appreciation for the form as he ranted a bit more about how ridiculous the idea of crime solving moggies was.
Anyway I struck a blow for cat lovers everwhere. Wehn I asked DH to sign his books I got him to sign them to Liz and Jim and their super-sleuthing cats. I don't know if he saw the funny side or just thought we were cranks.
An interesting evening but lighten up a bit David!

Why I wasn’t ‘misled’ by Tony Blair -Not even for 45 minutes

2010-02-01T11:40:00.000-08:00

Last week Blair’s the Chilcot Enquiry dominated the news media. Those ‘lucky’ enough to get winning raffle tickets had actually attended and some had tried to demonstrate near to the enquiry. Apparently, one attendee said very loudly that he couldn’t stand it any more. This was probably the only honest thing said all day by anyone present. The Times has compared the whole thing to an episode of the Muppet show.
As anticipated there were no new revelations. Tony Blair’s raison d’etre for the war, however, went through another metamorphosis. Before the war Tony Blair claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which could be launched in 45 minutes. Later he claimed that he just had weapons of mass destruction stowed away. When no weapons were found he claimed that he Saddam had been engaged in a ‘programme’ of weapons construction. Now at Chilcot he was more or less saying that Saddam had been thinking about having weapons of mass destruction. To Blair’s impressive list of talents we must add clairvoyance.
Many people are annoyed about Blair for having misled Parliament and the country. However, I didn’t believe the justification for war for a minute and I don’t think that that anyone who took time to think about the issue should have done either.
One does not need insider knowledge to critically examine Tony Blair’s claims- only the application of logic.
It is impossible to disprove a negative. None of us could ever absolutely disprove an accusation which has been made against us. This is why the burden of proof in criminal cases is on the prosecution. They would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that we had committed the crime we were charged with. Saddam was expected to prove that he did not have weapons of mass destruction. An impossible task for anyone. Quantities of materials for chemical weapons were unaccounted for. However, this is hardly surprising. Even the UK loses hazardous material and we have a record of losing confidential data on memory sticks.
The important fact about Iraq was that in the run up to war it was crawling with weapons inspectors. If the west had reliable intelligence about weapons then the sensible thing would have been to feed this information to the weapons inspectors who could then ask to visit the sites. If they found weapons then it would have given Bush and Blair convincing grounds to secure a new UN resolution. If they had been refused access to the sites then this would have convinced the rest of the world that Saddam had something to hide.
In fact, information was passed onto weapons inspectors. Hans Blix speaking on radio 4 two weeks ago said that he visited a number of sites after being tipped off by the intelligence community. On these occasions he got full co-operation from the Iraqis but found nothing. He said that he assumed that the intelligence community would have given him their best intelligence. The lack of weapons ought to have caused scepticism about the rest of the intelligence. Some of these false starts were reported in the press in the run-up to the war. Examples of claims by Iraqis were also reported in the media. One was by a man who claimed that he had been told that he had seen a giant warehouse which someone had told him was full of weapons of mass destruction. The man making the claim had not actually seen inside the warehouse himself. Hardly a very convincing piece of information. The fact that many of those making the claims had an axe to grind (even if that was just getting out of the country) did little to add to their credibility.
There were other bizarre stories being circulated such as the infamous ‘human shredder’ story which was widely reported in the Guardian. Apparently Saddam had dispatched some of his enemies using a giant shredding machine normally used for shredding plastic. Anyone who has experience of using a paper shredder will know that these devices don’t take kindly to you putting anything in then that they are not designed for. Where would all the blood and gore go? Do plastic shredders exist? Can you buy one on ebay? Why do we not have the names of anyone who was shredded? Would their relatives not have objected? At that time anyone who asked for those sorts of details was castigated for being insensitive. Yet like the WMD- no shredders were found.
This may sound like a trivial issue. However, the appearance in the media of stories which don’t hold up to any kind of critical scrutiny (when there ought to have plenty which would), ought to have raised people’s suspicions. Of course Saddam Hussein did commit atrocities- but mentioning the real ones would raise the important question of why we were intervening now rather than when they had originally occurred. It would also raise the awkward question of who had sold him the weapons that he had used on his enemies and why it was once considered okay for the west to sell him WMD.
If we were sure that Saddam had weapons that he could use in 45 minutes then there would have to have been very detailed information about what the weapons were and where they were held. Otherwise, how could we possibly know the precise amount of time needed to deploy them? Why was this information not released to the public? Where were the satellite pictures of weapons installations? How could Saddam have large caches of weapons ready to trundle out without us having high definition satellite images of them?

So what was Tony Blair’s motivation? My scenario is like this. Blair believed that the US was going to attack Iraq anyway. By siding with Bush Blair, thought that Britain would be on the winning side and therefore well placed to share in the spoils of war. Britain would also share the credit for bringing democracy to a former rogue state and Rupert Murdoch would have another country to broadcast his satellite tv to. Saddam was bound to have some weapons stashed away for a rainy day somewhere or at worst have some that he had forgotten about. This would retrospectively provide a justification for war. If even only a few weapons had been found then people would accept that war was justified. It was ‘no-brainer’ a ‘slam dunk’ and a ‘win-win’ for someone with enough hubris and no moral scruples. By actually obeying international resolutions, Saddam had spoiled it all and exposed the war for the con that it was.

Then we come to whole issue of the events after the invasion. Bush and Blair had banked on the idea that they would be welcomed with open arms by the Iraqi’s, that they would embrace democracy and western values. This was also extreme hubris and showed a complete failure to understand the relationships between different peoples and cultures at even the simplest level. The criminal failure to establish proper security in the post war period resulted in a terrible wave of destruction of property. Hospitals and homes were looted, businesses were destroyed, priceless artefacts were stolen, infrastructure was damaged and unguarded weapons stores were raided by the terrorists of the future. Soldiers, politicians and newsreaders said that this was simply the sort of hi-jinks that we should expect when people are freed from an oppressive dictator. I saw it for what it was- an act of extreme negligence perpetrated against a whole society. The fact that this was allowed to happen spoke tellingly of the value which the invading forces placed on the culture and heritage of the country they had come to ‘liberate’.

Lastly we should examine the political backdrop to the war. Blair recently said that he saw the conflict in Iraq has part of a wider battle for Islam. Why Blair, as a Catholic thinks he has a right to have an opinion on this is not clear. Why he thinks it should have anything to do with war is even less clear.
Even last week, Blair was conflating Iraq with 9/11, when in fact Saddam had no truck at all with Islamic fundamentalism. In fact, he had a secular outward facing view of the world and women had greater freedoms and rights in Saddam’s Iraq than they do in may the countries the region.
By stating that only his maker can judge him (ridiculous when it was the British electorate that gave him is position of power), Blair is showing that he is the real religious fanatic.

In conclusion, Blair did fool part of parliament and part of the country- but only the parts who wanted to be fooled or who didn’t care about the issues enough to critically examine what they were being told. Politicians who voted for the war probably belong to the first category. It was easier for them to convince themselves that it was okay than think about the consequences of what they were doing. Like Blair, they probably thought that it would all come out alright in the end and that they would risk losing their seat if they voted against war. Rupert Murdoch, (one of real holders of power behind UK and US politics) apparently said at the time that the main benefit of the war would be cheap oil. That is the real elephant the room that Chilcot hasn’t considered, but even that was not achieved.
Years later, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s are dead. International terrorism is more of a risk than ever and Britain’s esteem in the world is greatly damaged.
Iraq is a criminal matter. We don’t need to go over what the intelligence said or did not say. In any case, Blair has now said that he would have invaded Iraq whether he thought there was WMD or not. At the end of the day it was a judgment call by the Prime Minister and Parliament. With a few honourable exceptions they made the wrong decision morally, ethically and strategically based on the information in front of them. We don’t need any more enquiries to establish this. We never have done.
The real lesson which should come out of the Chilcot enquiry is that we all have a responsibility to think about what is being done around us- by our politicians and in our communities. We can’t afford to just sit by and assume that those in power know what they are doing or that things will turn out for the best. We have duty to be mindful of consequences of our actions in every moment of every day.

Does airport security make you feel any safer?

2010-02-01T11:39:00.000-08:00

BBC Breakfast had for once interesting item this morning about full body scanners which are being rushed into operation at Heathrow along with sniffer dogs and doubtlessly other methods of terrorist detection. I have to say that I m not a fan of BBC Breakfast. At any other time of the day BBC News 24 is a very good source of news. In the morning, however, it is full of fluff and my preferred choice is Euronews or CNN. But getting back to the item- Lots of people were interviewed and they all without exception were happy to have scans of their nude bodies examined provided hey did not show up on the internet. The only dissenter was a man in the studio from a civil liberties organisation who asked the pertinent question of what liberties are we actually defending if we need to have pictures taken if our genitals to safeguard it.
No doubt the majority of the audience thought he was a crank and will fall back to the usual rhetoric of ‘If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear’ and ‘The more security we have the more secure we will be’.
However, let’s examine some of these ideas in more detail. First the idea that people who have done nothing wrong have nothing to fear. Try telling that to the people who have been incarcerated for years I Guantanamo Bay without any rights and in most cases without any charges being made against them. Or the people who have been kept under house arrest in the U.K. without being told who their accusers are or what evidence there is against them. Or the alleged perpetrators of the chemical vest plot who had their whole house systematically demolished looking for materials that have never been found. Could this happen to you? If you think that it couldn’t then why?
How many of you reading this would think twice about putting up a blog posting like this in case it put you on the security radar or upset somebody who had power over you? If it would give you a moment’s pause then you must realise that you no longer live in a society as free as you used to. If terrorists are trying to undermine our way of life then we seem to be hell bent on making sure they succeed.
Similar justifications are used in the increasing use of police checking of people who work with vulnerable people. The terrible murder of Holly and Jessica was used as a justification for increased use of police checks for people who work with vulnerable people and children. However, Holy and Jessica’s murderer did not have a Police record. In fact, he would have been prevented from getting a job as a school janitor by a much more low tech form of checking. If his new employer had asked for a reference he would not have been able to obtain a satisfactory one. Similarly, the person who tried to blow up a plane over the holidays could have been stopped using existing intelligence. He had been reported to the authorities by his own father who was concerned by his extreme views and behaviour. Conversely, the equipment being installed at Heathrow may not have been able to detect the type of explosives he was carrying. The intelligence that this man was dangerous was already there but was ignored. On Christmas Eve the Pope was attacked by a woman suffering from mental illness at the Mass at St Peter’s. Apparently the same woman had attempted this last year. Why was she allowed into the church? Surely security staff would have seen her photograph as part of their briefing. Why didn’t she get the psychiatric help she needed after she did it the first time?
Police checking and body scanners are appealing because they turn security into a procedure. They look good because we appear to be doing something. Something magic will happen inside the computer which will keep us safe provided we have faith in the technology. If it doesn’t work we just need better technology or better Police checks.
Here’s a better suggestion for making us more secure. Lets try changing how we engage with rest of the world. Redeploy the money spent on war in the middle east into helping people there and in countries like Haiti. Use the information we have at the moment wisely rather than abdicating our responsibilities to computer databases and new forms of snooping. Try to make the image we convey to the rest of the world in synch with how we would like to portray ourselves.
Now, wouldn’t that make you feel more secure?

Classic Rock » Blog Archive » Todd Rundgren: A Wizard Reborn In London

2010-01-27T08:13:00.001-08:00

Classic Rock » Blog Archive » Todd Rundgren: A Wizard Reborn In London

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My internet tv debut

2009-11-22T14:56:00.000-08:00

I was asked in early summer to do a tv segrment for an internet channel called Positive tv. They do a weekly 20 minute show (called Solutions) which is intended to showcase positive ideas for living and be a contrast to the negative news which goes on media outlets. News stories include stories about ecology, healing plants you can find in your environment, tantric sex etc.
I was asked to talk about positive approaches within psychology to a general audience who may not know anything about academic psychology- so academic jargon was a no no.
Filming was scheduled at quite short notice as they wanted to get good weather (the sun always shines on positive tv). It was an absolutely fabulous day and filming took place on the beech.
I went down to the beach with Director/Cameraperson Amber (and the interviewer/presenter whose name I have forgotten). She was very skillfull in setting up shots and managing to make an artificial situation seem totally relaxed and natural.
I decided to focus on humanistic type approaches and how they could help people to improve their lives. I also talked about current social problems such as racism and how psychology can help us to understand and combat these issues.
There is quite a lot of lead-in time for this sort of thing and I forgot all about it. It was only when I contacted Amber about something else a few days ago that I found out that the item had already aired.
Watching it now gave me some very mixed feelings. On one hand it is a kind of swan song for a career that I have probably left for good. I really enjoyed communicating ideas and I probably won't get so many opportunities to do it in the future. On the other hand, I have actually put in practice some of the ideas I talk about in the segment- taking control of my own life and demonstrating self-efficacy.
If you want to see the show then follow this link http://www.positivetv.tv/
That will take you to web site. My segment is the second half of the show entitled Solutions 32. You can either flip through the 'more shows' option (not easy) or do a search on the website for positive psychology. This will take you to Solutions 32 which lasts for 20 minutes and I am in the second half.

Lack of Activity

2009-09-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

Sorry to not have posted anything for a while. I should have lots to say about the fact that I am winding down from my current job and moving to another one. However, I have been spending a lot of time dealing with all the feelings that you might go through leaving a job you have been doing for 10 years plus all the excitement about starting a new one. I am doing a lot of reading to prepare me for my new job role. I am also winding down a bit and trying to get some rest. Something I haven't done for at least 3 years.
I am also thinking about what this blog should become. Should it be about mental health, personalization in adult social care(the topic of my new job), new technology (an recent interest of mine), psychology, the economy (another interest), or about me as a person? Ideally I would like it to be about all of the above but that might be a bit confusing or unsatisfactory for anyone who actually reads it.

40 Superb Psychology Blogs

2009-08-04T07:37:00.000-07:00

40 Superb Psychology Blogs

Should Internet Content Be Free?

2009-07-29T08:36:00.000-07:00

This month's issue of Wired magazine contains two very different views on this issue. One is the perspective of Rupert Murdoch who has recently started charging for content from the Wall Street Journal. It is business model in which some access can be obtained free but anyone who wants regular and comprehensive access to the site has to pay a subscription. This approach has some merits and seems to be working to an extent. However, the high end users of this web site are not typical of the wider constituency of internet of even newspaper readers. Murdoch reckons that the era of free online content is at an end because online advertizing revenue alone will not replace the income lost from the declining print versions. Murdoch is certainly right about this but this does not mean that that the internet is going to change to accomodate the needs of News Corp to continue to maintain its existing income levels.
Chris Anderson, in the same issue argues for a radically new business model to replace the old one. His arguments (taken from his new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price), suggest that traditional business models are not sustainable in this era. People are used to getting internet content free and production costs are now so low and piracy is now so rampant that anything which can be provided digitally is, or will soon be free. He argues that rather than trying to beat piracy, we should see pirates as just another marketing tool for our product. He argues, for example, that bootleg Gucci bags simply stimulate demand for real ones and that bootleg downloads expose a band to a greater number of people and ultimately sell more concert tickets.
Piracy, is not the only internet based threat to traditional business models, however. The other threat is generation of content. The tools of making videos, animations, etc - which would at one time have been restricted to those with a film studio are now available to anyone with a camcorder and a computer. Distribution and marketing are also free to anyone with a web site. Many people get much of their news and opinions from Blogs. An obvious retort to this is that the average blogger does not have the large resources or expertise of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. However, this perspective ignores the fact that much of the content of newspapers and tv news does not come from its own reporters. Much of it comes from news agencies, some consists of thinly disguised press release material and the opinion pieces are often little better than blogs. In terms of 'on the scene' reporting, more and more of this is being done by members of the public through Twitter and their camcorders. This trend is supported by the news media through intitives such as CNNs i-report. Increasingly news reporting is an interactive experience rather than a top down one. Sure, there is still a need for good investigative journalism but what is possibly not needed is the juggernaut publishing system and its old fashioned business models. Innovations such as i-report and the use of Twitter on CNN show a savvy approach to changes in the way news is produced and consumed
The internet is radically and forever changing not only the relationships between producers and consumers but also the roles. Consumers are generating content and writers and artists can interact directly with their audiences. The only part of the chain which no longer has a clear role is the traditional distribution networks. Much as Rupert Murdoch might want to turn back the clock and put the internet genie back in the bottle it is not going to happen.
The whole face of commerce and the buying and selling of resources, skills and labour is changing forever.

Schizophrenia and manic depression

2009-07-02T11:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/unlocked-the-secrets-of-schizophrenia-1727987.html
This article in today's Independent (based on recent articles in Nature) claims that schizophrenia and manic depression have a common genetic basis. This discovery is, they claim, "at odds with the orthodoxy in psychiatry stating that the two conditions are clinically distinct". It will not, however, come as a surprise to many people who have experience of working with mental health problems, students on my mental health module. Enlightened practitioners have come to realize that such terms do not necessarily have any direct link to dictinct pathologies and are in fact just ways of categorizing groups of symptoms. Some patients are given more than one diagnostic category at different times and this can be very confusing for them. It is much safer to say that someone who has symptoms such as delusions or hallucinations is suffering from a psychosis. The article also points to the involvement of areas of the genome associated with the immune system and this would help to explain the variations in succeptibility associated with the time of year someone is born. Links have also been found with genes involved in growth of nerve cells and production of neurotransmitters.
The work is based on analysis of gerntic material from 15,000 pateints and 50,000 'healthy' subjects.
The study points to a common vulnerability to the two conditions but does not explain why people develop one condition or the other. It also supports the stress vulnerability model as inheritance is only claimed to account for 80% of the risk.

Statutory Regulation

2009-07-01T03:17:00.000-07:00

Today - psychology comes under the regulatory auspices of the Health Professions Council. In some ways this does not affect me directly at present because I don't fit in to any of the categories which have become protected titles. It also creates a bit of an anomoly as I fit the criteria to be registered as a qualified social worker because of my past work and qualification with his body. The counselling profession is going to be professionally regulated in 2 years time. This has created a fair amount of controversy and indeed this process is likely to be a lot more 'messy' than some other types of professional regulation. Regulation seems to be working well for social work. However, this is a very clearly defined profession with existing statutory duties. Social workers have been traditionally employed by local authorities who are public bodies with very clear lines of responsibility and training has been provided for some time by publicly funded Universities. In addition to this training had been standardized and regulated for several decades.
Training in counselling, on the other hand has been provided by a diverse range of bodies, many of them private. There is a great variety of models and approaches. Many counsellors work in private practice and they do not have any statutory duties.
Part of the problem with the regulation controversy is that several different objectives are being conflated. The most obvious one is the need to protect the public from unethical, untrained or unscrupulous practioners. An article in today's Guardian recounts a story about a woman who was a victim of sexual misconduct by a counselling practioner. Certainly, the public need to be protected from such misconduct. However, statutory regulation is likely to encompass other issues such as standards of training, approaches to practice, monitoring of standards etc. Many of these issues cannot be tackled without significantly changing the face of the profession and its relationship with its clientel. Much of the attraction which private therapy hold for clients is the fact that is holistic, private, highly confidential and outwith the mainstream. For practitioners, the freedom to choose a model and develop their own highly individual stykle of working is a huge attraction in a field which does not offer many opportunities for high earnings or career development.
This is an issue which is likely to generate a very strong and lively debate over the next few years. Lets hope that whatever happens with regulation it arises out of a debate which hears all sides.

http://www.hpc-uk.org/mediaandevents/pressreleases/index.asp?id=352

2009-06-30T04:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.ufpmentalhealth.com/menu_mhu.php

User friendly psychiatry seminars in spetmeber /October

New rights for NHS patients

2009-06-29T05:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/six-new-rights-for-every-nhs-patient-1722927.html

The existing (and unpopular) approach of setting targets for the NHS is to be replaced by a set of rights for patients. There are many reasons for the new proposals to be welcomed. The target system created perverse incentives reminiscent of the old soviet economic system where targets drove aspects of patient care rather than being a measure of them. Patients will have a right to die at home and rights to certain types of treatment within defined periods. Also welcome will be increased roles for clinicians in managing services and managing their own budgets.
However, there are important questions still to be considered in relation to how we as a nation deal with the increased possibilities which new technologies offer us and most importantly how are they paid for. Do we go towards allowing patients to top up their care- as has been done with cancer treatments- with the issues which go with this about a 2 tier approach to health care-OR do we have an honest debate with the public about the need for charges or increased taxation to pay for these innovations. All of the planned improvements in health care delivery will have to paid for in some way and improved access to acute care may be made at the expense of services which are less visible or less popular with voters. This is the real debate which has to take place about the future of the NHS

2009-06-28T10:10:00.000-07:00

Intial entry-just to set it up-have chores to get on with