Longrider

I watched BBC’s Breakfast programme this morning… Why do I do this? Is it a form of masochism?

Anyway, the item that caught my attention was the one about the reliability survey that apparently says that 4×4s are unreliable heaps… er, well, not exactly…

If you’re just about to set off for work, or take the kids to school by car, you’ll probably be hoping that you make it there without breaking down.

And a survey published today, might just help you work out what your chances are.

That’s because a company specialising in car warranties has looked at 33 manufacturers, and 450,000 models of car and they have come up with a reliability index.

The programme pitched the piece as a blatant anti-big gas guzzler road hog story and it went downhill from thereon in. I’ll put my own prejudices on the table first, though. I don’t like them one little bit. On crowded city streets a large 4×4 is little better than a Transit van – they are cumbersome, clog up the road in front of me, block my view and four wheel drive is nothing more than a fad in the urban environment. I fail, utterly, to see their appeal. But, then, taste is an individual matter and many people cannot understand why I ride a motorcycle. So, that said, if people want to spend their money on these monsters, well, that’s their business.

Not so, according to the undertones displayed on Breakfast. 4×4s might just as well be the spawn of the devil. Indeed, the opener was that this survey is another reason not to own one. They wheeled out Jenny Jones, London’s road safety advisor with Quentin Wilson brought in to provide a little balance*. The subsequent discussion was, to say the least, interesting. Jenny Jones spouted the usual half baked nonsense fuelled with nothing more than emotive argument; “heavily polluting”, “dangerous” and such (watch the video). Quentin responded with extreme good grace given the bollocks he was forced to listen to and placed facts before the daft bint with whom he was supposed to be having the discussion. The general tone being that not only are these things “not green”, not only do they clog the roads and are unsafe for other road users (that rather depends on who is driving, of course), but now there’s proof that they are the spawn of the devil as they are unreliable as well. Quentin’s facts were no match for the propaganda and he pretty much gave up trying at one point.

As I said earlier, I don’t like the things myself and for some of the reasons put forward by Jenny Jones. However, given her blatant prejudice and inability to put forward a rational argument supported by facts and evidence, I distance myself from her and her ilk with as much space as I can muster. The substantive points she made are, as Quentin pointed out, not supported by the evidence. Ah, but, who needs evidence when you’ve got a good little witch hunt going?

*This appears to be a later version of the discussion to the one I saw, but you get the gist.

Motorists are once more in the firing line over the use of mobile phones while driving:

Motorists who are caught using a hand-held mobile phone while driving will have three penalty points added to their licence, the government says.

Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander said the maximum fine would also double to £60 from 27 February.

Oh, dear, here we go again. Driving while using a mobile phone is a specific offence, yet is almost universally ignored. I see this law flouted on a daily basis as people navigate traffic with a phone balanced in the crook of their shoulder or cheerfully steering one handed. Yet:

It’s quite simple - it’s impossible to do two things at once and do them well.

It is not impossible at all. Indeed, the driving activity requires a degree of multitasking. Using a mobile phone, though, means concentrating on a remote conversation while driving. It means, if you use a hand-held, that you are liable to compromise your control of the vehicle, but the thousands of people who natter daily on the phone while commuting to work, carrying out deliveries or doing the school run tends to suggest that Douglas Alexander is wrong; it is not impossible to do two things at once as it is happening on our roads every day. If we take his qualifying comment into account; i.e. to do the two things well, then again it isn’t impossible, it depends on what you mean by “well”. For many, not crashing will suffice. At least, my observation of their dring suggests so.

Is using a phone while driving a good idea? No. During a visit to the TRL some years back to do some research into rapid response vehicles and communications, I was shown some of the early research being carried out by the TRL and RoSPA into the use of phones while driving. Although the research was in its infancy, there were some disturbing trends; that a phone call – whether the set is hand held or hands-free – can lead to a loss of concentration on the driving task for up to twenty minutes after the call is terminated. If the call is of a serious or distressing nature, then it could be for even longer.

Some people argue that a phone call is no different to talking to a passenger. However, a passenger is able to see what is going on and know – hopefully – when to shut up and let the driver concentrate on the traffic conditions. Also, a passenger is unlikely to give disturbing news during the driving task. This isn’t to say that I approve of a moratorium on the use of phones in cars – just that when I drive, my mobile is switched off. I do not have a hands-free kit in the car and do not intend to fit one because I don’t use the phone while driving. That’s my choice following my assessment of the risk. It means that on balance, I do agree with the general sentiments expressed by Mr Alexander. I do not agree with more laws or beefing up the existing ones, though. Why?

That is why in December 2003 we introduced new laws preventing motorists from driving while using a hand-held mobile.

We have seen a groundswell of support for this move.

But, worryingly, while 92% of people agree with the law, 21% of drivers admit to breaking it.

That’s why. Despite the “groundswell” of support, it is widely ignored. The police can’t keep up and so the law becomes a laughing stock. Driving while using a phone means that the driver is in danger of driving without due care and attention. By a strange coincidence, there is an offence on the statue book for just such a happenstance. It’s called driving without due care and attention. It was perfectly possible for the police to charge motorists with this offence if they compromised their driving by using a mobile phone. We didn’t need a new law and it has subsequently proved ineffective. So, despite support from the opposition, it is likely to remain ineffective. As Chris Grayling points out:

But the trouble with changes like this coming from ministers in ivory towers is that they have left our roads to be policed by speed cameras rather than real traffic officers - and so people will carry on getting away with offences like this.

Well, quite. While the mobile phone remains a “must have” fashion accessory and while people absolutely must call for the most trivial purposes, this will continue. The law remains an ass. If Mr Alexander gets his way, all he is doing is pinning a bigger tail on it…

Today’s Observer carries the story of yesterday’s arrest of Ruth Turner.

Downing street was plunged into a full-scale war with the police yesterday after senior officers hit back at criticism of the way the cash-for-peerages investigation is being handled.

They responded after Cabinet Minister Tessa Jowell expressed bewilderment at the manner in which Ruth Turner, Number 10’s director of devolvement relations, was arrested at home at dawn - while former Home Secretary David Blunkett accused police of ‘theatrics’.

I would have thought such arrests were entirely predictable – and, that given the nature of the offences, that those arrests would, sooner or later, be close to Downing Street – if not at the very door of number 10. I have to pause here to savour the image of David Blunkett accusing others of “theatricals”. The irony is clearly lost on a man who demanded that rioting prisoners be machine gunned. His buffoonery knows no bounds it seems. Still, it makes an amusing interlude in what is otherwise a case of petards being strung at the highest levels. After all, are we not dealing with people who expressed a desire that suspects not be afforded the same rights as ordinary citizens? So why should Ms Turner have cause to complain? After all, she is a suspect in a crime – that, surely, is enough in Blair’s utopian world of suspects being treated as guilty on hearsay and lynch mob justice? And, if she has nothing to hide, she has nothing to fear, surely? Ah, but, the boot is on the other foot now and we can’t be having Blair’s lynch mob stringing him or his cronies up – that wasn’t what he had in mind at all…

Yesterday Scotland Yard made clear its anger at what it sees as undue political pressure.

Well, that took ’em long enough…

If, as the police quite rightly point out, Turner is indeed guilty, then the absurd idea of arranging an appointment would merely serve to provide her with time to dispose of the evidence. That’s why the dawn knock on the door.

I rather liked the comment attributed to one backbench MP regarding Blair:

‘He should be packing his bags if there are charges inside Number 10,’ said one senior backbencher.

Yeah, I think a wash bag will be enough – particularly if it is for a long period of well deserved time as a guest of her majesty. Oh, if only…

Via Notsaussure, this bit of fun. I think I go along with Queenminx in that I don’t take these things too seriously…

Anyway, I’m a relativist, it seems. I don’t think that comes as too much of a surprise, so perhaps these things are more accurate than I give them credit for…

According to Anne Rossiter writing in Talk is Cheap* Comment is Free, the government’s obsessive control freakery is nothing more than an attempt to get to know us better. As opposed, that is, to bureaucratic obsession with data mining. Oh, no Ann denies that it is any such thing:

Whatever New Labour is doing it is not, as AC Grayling wrongly suggested here, leading us towards some “bureaucratic despotism”, warned of by Weber. Look at current reforms - as many have been about limiting bureaucracy, through choice and market instruments, as have been about targets or management power. The best of New Labour’s reforms have been about empowering people, moving influence away from the monolith towards the individual.

Riiiight…. Anyone who deals with the machinery of state (and I keep mine to the absolute minimum) will realise that no amount of data sharing will solve the core problem; incompetence. Also, what Rossiter forgets (or chooses to ignore) is that the data is our data and it should be entirely up to us to decide who has access to what; not the state deciding for its own convenience. I would be interested to know which reforms have reduced what bureaucracy, exactly… I don’t recall being empowered by New Labour, merely an increased awareness of the state attempting to manage me for my own good, of course. I don’t need managing. I am an adult. I can manage myself perfectly well, thankyou very much.

Successful data sharing will do the same. It will make information reflect citizens’ priorities not bureaucratic priorities.

As David Moss points out when commenting on this story (and providing a wonderfully sarcastic deconstruction) over at the NO2ID newsblog, the Child support agency had access to data but its incompetence made life a misery for anyone unfortunate enough to interact with it. So, once more, we come back to incompetence… Then there’s the tax credits cock-up and the Criminal Records Bureau – which, I might point out is to expand its area of operations this year to cover other fields of enterprise.

Government that works properly has more power over people’s lives than government that works badly. People have different opinions about how desirable this is.

Well, she’s right about that… I certainly have an opinion. I want the government to have minimal power over my life. The government is there to serve me as a member of the electorate, not to exercise power over me. I do not belong to the state, it has no rights over me and I will not interact with it any more than is absolutely necessary to get along. I will, therefore, resist every attempt possible to give it information about me, my life, my circumstances and my family. Ideally, I want government to have negligible power over my life.

Government departments have evolved over time, reflecting many changing priorities. They are not particularly well designed to deliver the services we demand today. For public servants to have the right information to do their jobs different agencies and departments must share data. This happens already, but it happens haphazardly and sometimes not at all. Consequences vary from the ridiculous - 44 requests for the same information by the same department - to the tragic - inaction by social services dealing with Victoria Climbie.

This prize piece of gobbledygook is straight out of the Blair book of “modernism”. I.e. if it’s old, then it should be ditched and a “modern” solution sought. For “modern”, read obsessive control freakery and data sharing. Having indulged in anecdote and scaremongering, Ms Rossiter then goes on to tell an outright lie:

Reports about “super-databases” turned out to be false.

Er, NHS Database? The proposed all super duper child database? And, what about the National Identity Register? That it hasn’t happened yet isn’t through lack of desire on the part of government, it is simply that they bit off more than they could chew. It is certainly still in the legislation.

Data sharing can improve how government works for people, it can respect people’s different valuations of privacy, and it should be pursued together with increased citizen oversight of government.

No. Data sharing is the antithesis of privacy. Privacy will only be ensured by keeping government out of our personal business, by ensuring that the strict protocols currently preventing civil servants from passing information from one department to another remain in place. Not only is Rossiter wrong, she is dangerously wrong. I note from the comments, that others share my opinion.

This, for instance, caught my eye:

I expect governments to lie to me, and I expect governments to misuse data for their own narrow benefit. I expect politicians to lie, and I expect politicians to misuse data for their own narrow benefit. I am rarely disappointed.

Indeed.

*hat tip, notsaussure.

Those of you who, like me, are self-employed have until the end of this month to get those tax returns in. My accountant has forwarded mine for signature along with my accounts for the tax year ending April 2006. It makes depressing reading. When the Inland Revenue owes me money, it’s time for a rethink.

After three years of self-employment, I’m starting to get the hint that contract training work in the rail industry is not particularly lucrative. Time, I think, to get a real job…

A commenter on Mr E’s blog called “goldfish” discussing the truly appalling Big Brother programme on Channel 4:

Big Brother appears to be the ultimate triumph of the moronic, the ignorant and the desperately insecure.

Indeed.

Following on from my post of the other day, it would seem that more and more Britons favour the idea of an English parliament.

Most people, including those in Scotland, think England should have its own parliament, a BBC poll suggests.

Newsnight found 61% in England, 51% in Scotland and 48% in Wales agreed with the idea.

The poll, carried out to mark 300 years since the Act of Union, was of 883 adults in England, 543 in Scotland and 527 in Wales.

Interestingly, it is the Scots and Welsh alongside the English who agree that the present situation is inherently unfair. That effectively puts paid the the “little Englander” lie put about by a government that hates England and would seek to wipe it from the map; turning it instead into a collection of regions. The argument put forward by Neil Harding in my comments section just doesn’t hold water. An English parliament dealing with English matters would no more affect Scotland than Holyrood affects England – unless you count fishing licenses. To suggest that a large population would affect the machinations of a parliament across the border is absurd. Does Madrid Affect Lisbon? They are both countries in the EU, after all.

To suggest that Londoners would be disenfranchised is to ignore that we have local councils running alongside national government - the same would apply here. Now, it may be appropriate to point out that the last thing this country needs is more politicians, but that’s another argument. It may be appropriate to suggest that the thoroughly objectionable Livingstone be toppled from his perch, but that, too, is another matter. Ken can look after purely local London matters and a parliament would look after national ones – it isn’t difficult. That London wants its old GLC back is very much the business of the London electorate. However, for that to be used as a vote of confidence for regionalising the rest of England is pushing it, somewhat.

Ultimately, though, what we say is not really what matters. Democracy is about what the majority want and if the BBC poll is accurate, then the majority – along with our Welsh and Scottish brethren – want an English parliament. So, it’s about time the government stopped feeding us a line, and gave us what we want.

Update: Waking Hereward on Diane Abbott playing the “Little Englander” card. The woman disgusts me.