Be Lazy - the Union told you so

The Trade Union Communists, I mean Congress, is calling for all Brits to “work to rule” meaning to finish work on time, and no later, and to have a full lunch hour. This is because the TUC claims that employees are “ripped off” as employers get £23 billion of “free work”.
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Well fine – let’s all do that, do nothing more than you absolutely need to. Why don’t doctors do that? “shift over, sorry I can’t fix you”. Just think if everyone did this! Just imagine how many small businesses could function on that basis?
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It is classic socialism, the worship of being average and it is the reason the TUC doesn’t understand the huge bonuses a few thousand in the City of London get for working enormous hours under much pressure.
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I haven’t had a successful career because I did 9 to 5, or always had an hour’s lunch, in fact that would be exceedingly rare. That’s why I don’t need the TUC, I am prepared to work and have an employer who rewards it .
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So Work Your Proper Hours Day is a waste of time. Employers ought to respond to employees who do this though. Employees caught using stationery, telephones, internet access, pens and the like for private purposes should have that deducted from their salary. This includes spending time online during “proper hours” or talking to friends or the like.
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So how about Do Nothing But Work While at Work Day. I’m sure the TUC will back.

Ban alcohol advertising will fix binge drinking?

According to the Daily Telegraph, Professor Ian Gilmore, head of the Royal College of Physicians, has called for a total ban on alcohol advertising because it will combat Britain's binge drinking culture.

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No it wont.

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The only thing that will make it change is when more people want to be conscious more often than not, rather than escape their own lack of self esteem and their own lives.

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They wont drink less because there is no advertising - the Soviet Union is the classic case. Advertising affects choice of drink not the choice TO drink, and children learn early on that alcohol is a grown up taboo thing, and people have fun taking it and laugh at the stupid things people do when drunk.

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The answer is culture, not regulation.

Egypt’s lack of free speech

It is sad that one of the bulwarks against Islamism in the Middle East -Egypt - is brutal towards free speech.

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Hosni Mubarak is a dictator – he is no doubt better than having an Islamist regime, and he has maintained peaceful relations with Israel – but he is a dictator. Political dissent has few outlets in Egypt, and that is sad because it fuels dissent in the major independent institution in the country – mosques. I know the alternative for now is an Islamist regime - which would be far worse. As No Right Turn points out "In a free society, criticising an educational institution and the government should not be a crime. But Egypt is not a free society". The bubble of Islamism is only encouraged if criticism is suppressed because it will rally opposition towards Islam - as in Iran.

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Hosni Mubarak is big and bright enough to not do this, to grant Abdel Kareem Soliman a pardon, and allow criticism of government and Islam. The US administration should exercise pressure as well.

Classic Boris Johnson and Qantas's new business class service

Conservative MP Boris Johnson’s latest Daily Telegraph column highlighting the hypocrisy of certain tabloid newspapers which on the one hand luridly post headlines and images involving gratuitous sex, while also being part of the “outrage” community who forever bemoan the filth on television, perverts and the sexualisation of society. Johnson is often hilarious, usually unintentionally, but did have the balls to take on Jamie Oliver on school meals.
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He was motivated by one Qantas flight attendant granting Ralph Fiennes business class service (from Darwin to Mumbai), which came to light because the damned silly woman sold the story to the Mail on Sunday (here) - the trashiest tabloid if only because it is the one that most pretends to be about news, but is actually carefully cloaked anti-foreign, populist, reactionary bullshit. The Mail doesn’t do the phwoar tits and arse of the Sun, but its no serious paper either.
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By the way, this is the juicy bit from the Mail on Sunday, because I know if you aren’t interested, you stop reading:
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“There were only 12 passengers in business class that night. Then, as she was preparing to go on her break, Fiennes made an unexpected suggestion. Lisa said: 'We had chatted a bit about India - where I've been five times - and his movies. 'When I told him I was going for a break, he said, "I might come and visit you for a chat, if that's OK." I was a bit surprised, but also thrilled. I said, "Sure."' Lisa admits she was smitten by the star, but says she did not make the first move and had no thought of what might happen next.

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It was 11pm and most of the other passengers were asleep. Lisa retired behind the curtained crew area, next to the cockpit, took off her shoes and put her feet up. But moments later she was interrupted by Fiennes.

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'I'm sorry, were you sleeping?, he said. 'No,' she replied. 'Come in and take a seat.'

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Lisa is not proud of what happened next, but she found Fiennes 'irresistible'. 'At first we just chatted,' she said. 'He sat really close to me. He told me he was learning lines for a new movie with Colin Farrell, playing the part of a gangster. He said he was practising his cockney accent. 'I asked him to give me an example. He did and it was really good. I told him again that The English Patient was just the best movie, but he said, 'That was over ten years ago. Why don't people value my later work?'

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'I apologised and said I didn't mean to offend him. I guess we talked for about an hour about lots of different things. He thought it was funny that I lived alone with my dog, a Lhasa Apso-poodle cross called Finn.' Fiennes told Lisa he was touring Indian villages for Unicef to talk about AIDS awareness. He asked what she would be doing in Bombay, where she was staying, and said, 'Do you want to meet up?' Stunned and deeply flattered, Lisa said: 'Yeah. That would be cool.'

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By this point they were sitting so close their faces were just inches apart. Lisa said: 'He held my hands. Then he started kissing me. The kissing was very passionate and his hands were all over me. I just melted.
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'He was caressing my neck, holding my head and he started undoing the buttons on my dress. The way he was going, he would have made love to me right there.

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'I was very turned on and so was he. I had butterflies in my stomach. I was touching his face and his hair. He had beautiful skin. I was undoing his shirt as well. It was a bit surreal, like a scene from one of his movies.

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'But I was afraid my supervisor might pull back the curtain and catch us. Eventually, I couldn't bear it any longer. I just grabbed his hand and said, "Come in here a minute."

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'By this time, we had half our clothes off and I didn't care about anything. I led him into the cabin lavatory next to where we had been sitting and locked the door. 'Ralph was a great lover. And I thought if I was going to get the sack, it would be worth it. I knew it was against the rules and wrong but I didn't care.

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'I was a bit shocked that he didn't wear a condom. Looking back, I think of it as dangerous behaviour and hypocritical given that he was going to India to talk about AIDS. 'He asked me, "Have you ever done this before?". I said, "No, never." I asked him the same question and he said, "No." 'The only strange thing was that he kept his eyes open the whole time, staring at me intensely, although we were kissing madly.

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'I realised that people would miss me and wonder where I was as my break was almost over. I told him we had to get out of there quickly. 'I helped him get dressed and he told me that when he got out of the toilet he would press his call button to distract the other flight attendants so that I could leave.

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'But a male member of staff saw Ralph come out of the toilet and he saw me lock the door after Ralph. When I came out, the member of staff was still there. I prepared to get back to work but the cabin manager wanted a word with me. She asked, "Did you go into the toilet with a male passenger?"

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'I said, "No." But she said three people saw me do it. She told me I had crossed the line and that she was going to report me when we got back to Sydney. 'Ralph called me over and asked, "Is everything all right?" I told him, "No,"and sat down next to him. He was very concerned, but I downplayed it and said I would sort it out.

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'I knew I was in big trouble. I was ordered to spend the rest of the flight working in economy and I was the talk of the other cabin crew.”

Ralph Fiennes' publicist says the flight attendant was the aggressor. Nevertheless, she's out of a job and he's sitting back with a new boost of publicity and will be forgiven - after all, he's a man women find beautiful - and they are always forgiven. While some say this episode is good for Qantas, I think it is the exact opposite. When you are famous and fly you don't want the cabin crew to be selling stories of your trip - discretion is the key. Quite a few celebrities (Sarah Michelle Gellar) fly Singapore Airlines (where you wont get this sort of service of course), and you hear nothing of it.

Road pricing petition shakes Blair

In 2006, Tony Blair invited e-petitions to be set up on his website for the public to put their names to, as part of extending democracy. This, of course, encouraged nutters galore, and there are over 3000 of them. Many are semi-literate, some are crazy (Ban 4x4 owners' clubs, ban hoodies, cull seals), but one has worked in getting attention. Nearly 1.8 million people have signed a petition against road pricing.

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The detailed wording of the petition is:

"The idea of tracking every vehicle at all times is sinister and wrong. Road pricing is already here with the high level of taxation on fuel. The more you travel - the more tax you pay. It will be an unfair tax on those who live apart from families and poorer people who will not be able to afford the high monthly costs. Please Mr Blair - forget about road pricing and concentrate on improving our roads to reduce congestion."

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UK government policy on road pricing is to encourage local authorities to pursue local schemes, with all surplus revenue dedicated to funding local transport projects. London and Durham do this now, and a lot of other cities are considering it too - partly to relieve chronic congestion, partly because the government is willing to fund more projects if those cities pursue road pricing.

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However, wider than that the government has indicated a long term policy to introduce national road pricing that will vary by distance, time of day, location and vehicle type. Now this is economically rational by itself. Britain has the worst congestion in Europe on average, and while there is scope for plenty of modest road improvements (especially in London, where Ken Livingstone is opposed to increasing road capacity), the real problem is that too many people want to use free roads at the same time.

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Fuel tax isn't an answer, Britain has the highest petrol tax in the world (50.9p/l or NZ$1.40!), and none of it is dedicated to transport (unlike NZ where it is now all spent on transport). Raising fuel tax now means that road users in the countryside or driving off peak are paying a punitive level of tax.

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However the government has done an abysmal job of selling road pricing. For starters it has not ever responded to the nonsense about it tracking everyone's movements. Anyone with a basic understanding of GPS knows it is not a "spy in the sky" satellite - it broadcasts signals that a unit in your vehicle triangulates and determines itself where it is. GPS satellites receive nothing from GPS receivers. Secondly, the technology to be used doesn't need to transmit location data anywhere - it can be used to calculate a charge and deduct it from a prepaid card, but only transmit location data when you fail to pay. It doesn't help that the Blair government is pursuing compulsory national ID cards or has a national DNA database of everyone arrested - in other words it can't be trusted on privacy.

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It also has failed to state clearly what has often been mentioned, that road pricing must come with a countervailing cut or removal of fuel and road tax (similar to motor vehicle licensing in NZ).

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Most importantly, the real problem is that doing something like this nationally is a huge risk for central government. It would be far easier and less riskier to commercialise or privatise the highway network, and let it be tolled to pay for all of its costs, and then make councils operate their roads commercially too and do the same thing. In any case, national road pricing wont exist before the next election, though the London scheme has just been extended, and there may be another local scheme or two before 2010. Blair has responded to the petitioners in a way that isn't bad, but probably not convincing enough for doubters.