Less politics, more science please

Chris Grayling has said the sacking of the Government's chief drug advisor was "inevitable" following his latest ill-judged comments on cannabis reclassification.

I think what he should have said was

Chris Grayling has said the sacking of the Government's chief drug advisor was "inevitable" following their latest ill-judged comments on cannabis reclassification.

I'm a Conservative, I believe in freedom, I believe in personal responsibility and I believe that any government should think very carefully before deciding to reduce people's freedom to make their own decisions. On the issue of drug legislation, science and pragmatism seem to have given way to authoritarianism and dogma, and while this is hardly surprising from the government whose prime purpose seems to be the expansion of state interference in...everything, it is still sad to see.

Sadder to see is that the line being taken by the shadow Home Secretary isn't to slate Labour's actions and defend the practice of making decisions based on good science and what actually makes sense. By effectively siding with Labour on this matter he not only sets a very worrying precedent but also misunderstands the feelings of a lot of grass-roots members of the party who don't think that running government policy "by the red-tops" is the right way to govern.

But hey, the Conservative party is a broad church and there's room for a range of views, as long our policy positions continue to get debated then that can only be a good thing for everyone concerned.

Deprivation

After a recent conversation with a friend, I found myself thinking about deprivation in Hull. Having suggested that Hull had a problem with deprivation, and being disagreed with by my friend who is rightly proud to be from Hull, we started trying to define what exactly we mean by deprivation.

Firstly, deprivation isn't just about money. If throwing money at deprived areas was the solution then Labour would have been far more successful in improving the lives of people in this country than they clearly have been. Labour's core belief seems to be that what we need is a bigger, more powerful government and throwing more money at things and any problem can be bent to their will. What do we end up with at the end of that? A lot of debt and a lot of people whose problems have been ignored because they don't need yet more "investment".

So what else, other than not having enough money, does deprivation mean? One of the most obvious is deprivation of aspiration, something that is pervasive in the education system in this country. If you measure schools by what percentage get 5 A*-Cs, then what a school will focus its energies on is making sure everyone gets 5A*-Cs. I can't blame any school for this focus, they would be crazy to do anything else because we are told that a school with a high percentage of pupils getting 5 A*-Cs is a success and a school with a lower percentage is a failure. But where does aspiration come in? It's a culture of asking for "OK" rather than striving for individual excellence in every pupil. It's rejecting the idea of grammar schools not because they don't work but because they make it harder for other schools to achieve "success" as measured by 5 A*-Cs. If the only schools where students are told "you can do anything", not just in words but by the very ethos of the school, are private schools, then is it any wonder the our leading universities have such trouble with low rate of application from state schools?

How about deprivation of opportunity, where people are expected to do things but never given the chance? The government says "we want as many people in work as possible" and then stacks the odds against them by creating a benefit system which makes more sense not to work than to take a lower paid job. Who can blame people for choosing not to work given that kind of choice! And why have the Labour government not seen this, are we really to believe that nobody might have twigged this fact? Or maybe the answer simpler than that, maybe having a large group of people whose livelihood depends on a government happy to maintain the status quo might be useful when it comes to elections...

Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg, in so many other ways people have been deprived, and I'm sure in due course. So much of what has gone wrong in this country is about people being deprived of that they should rightfully be given, and the sooner that we have a government who can see that means more than just throwing money at people the better.

Question Time

Typical isn't it, Question Time are coming to Hull next week and it's the one week I'm not around to go, not impressed! Obviously there was no guarantee of getting tickets anyway, but it's still galling not to even have a chance.

Let's just hope there's a decent Conservative contingent there to ask Alan Johnson the tough questions he needs to be able to answer if he's to take over from Gordon...

Very poor PR

Call for probe into council PR contract

A TAXPAYERS' pressure group has called for an inquiry into how a contract was awarded to a private company to run an East Riding Council department.

Hessle public relations and communications company Mercury Design and Marketing Ltd won a contract to manage the authority's in-house communications team in July.

Something about this whole situation just doesn't seem right, and I'm not just talking about the fact that the managing director of this company doesn't exactly have the best track record. Rather than spending £35,000 per year keeping this role in-house, East Riding Council pay £60,000 a year to outsource. Now even allowing for on-costs, which being it's the public sector are not small, I can't see any way that this outsourcing is saving the taxpayer money. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem at all with outsourcing functions which are better handled by private enterprise, but that is strictly on the condition that either the quality of the product is significantly better or it costs less to provide the same service. So what is it, are Mercury Design and Marketing Ltd vital to ERYC's communication with the public, providing a service that the council can't, or is somehow a cheaper alternative because they are replacing the job of several people? Please tell me it's not just a way to abdicate responsibility for communications by passing the buck to an external entity who can take the flak if things go wrong.

Hull on fire

Waste plant 'could burn for days'

A fire at a waste recycling plant in East Yorkshire could burn for up to three days.

No political comment, no complaints about any of it (since I have every faith in the fire service and their professional opinions on how best to manage the fire), just a small observation. If you look at the picture on the BBC story, you will notice a building in the background with a tower. That building is called British Extracting, an abandoned building and part of Hull's rich industrial history. I mention British Extracting only because I have a love for the abandoned and decaying parts of Hull which are so often overlooked by people, and would recommend anyone who hasn't had a chance to spend a few hours wandering around that part of Hull on a quiet Sunday, experiencing first hand the sheer scale of some of these buildings. Have a look at Clarence Mill, the former Rank Hovis building, a building crying out for a sympathetic conversion to make use of this stunning building. If getting out there and wandering isn't your cup of tea, have a look at sites like 28 Days Later and really experience what other people see in these hidden gems.

Total Rubbish

Group's delight at incinerator cash blow

Campaigners are claiming a victory against controversial plans for an incinerator near Hedon, after the development hit funding problems.

It comes after East Riding and Hull City councils announced a bid for private finance initiative (PFI) cash to help pay for the waste-burning facility was no longer being considered.

Now normally I might be tempted to direct my ire at the Not In My Back Yard attitude of people, but honestly I can see why you might object to a waste incinerator (or a new landfill, or anything else collecting together that much waste) being built on your doorstep, especially since I'm guessing there wouldn't be any financial incentive for those who would be most affected. Don't get me wrong, if the scheme is necessary and reasonable measures have been taken to minimise or mitigate negative effects (offering an annual cash payment for those living nearby would seem a nice gesture for instance), then I don't think people should be able to veto a scheme, but in this case I don't think it is necessary.

Let's look, for just a second, at why an incinerator is even being considered given the pollution it will clearly kick out. Are Hull and East Riding councils considering an incinerator because it's be cleanest way to get rid of rubbish? No. Are they considering it because it's the most cost effective way to get rid of rubbish? No. They're considering it because an artificial price has been placed on the use of Landfill by a European Union directive on reducing waste. A price has to be paid for every ton of rubbish dumped into landfill, and that price is massively increasing which suddenly makes uneconomical and polluting solutions viable. That's the law of unintended consequences, where a generally well meaning person decides the best way to achieve their purpose (reducing the amount of waste we put in landfills) is by imposing a bigger central government control (in this case tax) on it.

So what is the alternative? Well the best way that I can see is to encourage recycling, and the first part of that, having a decent system of recycling bins, is at least starting to get moving. The other part of that, and I know I'm going to make myself a little unpopular by saying this, is encouraging people to make the effort to recycle. And what is the simplest way to do that? Collect general waste less often and recycling more often. If you know that your general waste is going to be picked up fortnightly but your recycling (including the compostable kitchen waste) will be picked up weekly, you might well be motivated to put food waste into the recycling rather than it sitting in the general waste. If you know you need to fit two week's worth of rubbish into one black wheelie bin, you might well put the paper, cans, cardboard, glass and plastics in the appropriate recycling bins than try to force it all into the general waste.

Or is that just too simple?

Magic Thinking

“When I was ten I could fly."

What if the things you believe as a kid are really true?

After so much of me ranting about what everyone is doing wrong, I think it only fair I interject some praise where it's due. On Thursday I went to see "Magic Thinking" by Eamonn Fleming at the Hull Truck Theatre, and the only word I can rightly ascribe to it is "brilliant". One man, on a stage, various odd props around him, but fundamentally just one guy talking to the audience for an hour, a format that's not always easy to do well. The reason it worked so well: because Eamonn Fleming is a man you could listen to for hours, not because he's telling jokes but because he's genuinely interesting and witty. Think your funny, extrovert best mate, the one who everyone just wants to be around, the one whose words everyone hangs on. But with props. Did I laugh so hard it hurt? No. Did I reach the end of it and sit there thinking "Wow, that was brilliant"? Yes, and that for me is the mark of success.

Definitely recommend seeing him if you've ever got the opportunity, you won't regret it.