Suspicion of the day

Those who publicly demand freedom are secretly seeking power over others.

Gun murders revisited

Yesterday, I grabbed some Wiki data to look at whether a higher rate of gun ownership means a lower chance of being killed with a gun. I divided one by the other and it didn't look like the argument stood up.

Today I'll do it a different way: I'll MULTIPLY one by the other, on the assumption that if the theory is correct, one figure gets lower and the other gets higher, so the line should be reasonably even, even if it might be angled (I'm sure a statistician can put me right, but at least I'm trying). Here's the data:

... and here's the graph (in block form):

The last 5 on the right leap out of the trend. My explanation is that higher rates of gun murders are more a function of lack of social cohesion and weak official control. What's yours?

Osborne: Bankers face payment by results

A startling recent report from the Daily Telegraph outlines a radical shakeup of the banking system by the Chancellor, George Osborne. I reproduce the text below (N.B. our spellchecker has identified and corrected a number of errors in the course of transcription).

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Poor bankers could be paid less than competent colleagues under government plans to improve standards of commercial banking.

Ministers want to link pay to performance in the boardroom as part of a new drive to improve results and attract the best graduates into the profession.

A cross-party group of MPs today says that a new payment by results system is needed to stop the worst bankers hiding behind a “rigid and unfair” national remuneration structure.

“Results” would include not just profits but measures such as how much progress client businesses make, corporate governance and credit ratings.

Last night, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, disclosed that Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, had already asked the FSA, which analyses national remuneration packages, to set up a new Walker-style review and “make recommendations on introducing greater freedoms and flexibilities in bankers’ pay, including how to link it better to performance”.

Mr Osborne said the Government welcomed the MPs’ report “into this important area”. The review body is expected to deliver its recommendations by September.

In the report published today, the Treasury select committee says bankers should be rewarded for “adding the greatest value” to customers’ businesses and be given paid sabbaticals to further their skills.

MPs claim the reforms would address fears that poor bankers are having a “very significant” impact on businesses’ long-term prospects. The report quotes international research which shows that the worst bankers could cost business people and millions of employees their livelihoods and life savings.

Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford University in America, has shown that an excellent banker can help local enterprises thrive and create employment, whereas a poor one will drive his customers into receivership.

The British Bankers’ Association is strongly opposed to any attempt to alter pay and conditions. However, the committee’s report says: “No longer should the weakest bankers be able to hide behind a rigid and unfair pay structure.

“We believe that performance management systems should support and reward the strongest bankers, as well as make no excuses — or, worse, incentives to remain — for the weaker. Given the profound positive and negative impacts which bankers have on national economic performance, we are concerned that the pay system continues to reward low performers at the same levels as their more successful peers.”

They want the Government to draw up proposals for a pay system that rewards those adding the greatest “value to the performance of enterprises”.

Marcus Agius, the chairman of the British Bankers’ Association, said: “Payment by results is total nonsense. Our customers are not tins of beans and banks are not factory production lines.

“Successful banks rely on a collegiate approach and team working. Performance-related pay is not only inappropriate but also divisive.

“Business people differ and startups differ from year to year, making it impossible to measure progress in simplistic terms.”

There are currently 5 major banking groups in the UK, and about 20 others. Although an element of performance-related pay already exists, ministers are now looking at enhancing rewards for the best.

Currently, bankers in London can earn up to £1.25 million. but see their pay rise to £8 million with other perks and bonuses. Earlier this year, Natalie Ceeney CBE, the chief executive of the Financial Ombudsman Service, said too many bankers – more than 90 per cent – were allowed to pass the test. “The thing that irritates good bankers, people who work hard and go the extra mile, is seeing the people that don’t do that being rewarded,” she said.

In December, it was reported that just no bankers judged to be incompetent over an 18-month period had been sacked.

In further recommendations, the report says a “sabbatical scholarship” programme should allow outstanding bankers to take time out to work in a different bank, undertake research or refresh their subject knowledge. It is also suggested fund managers and quantitative analysts be allowed to lead training sessions for university students as part of a system of “banking taster classes” to show them the benefit of a career in the profession.

Gun ownership and murder

It's often argued by the gun lobby that we'd be safer if we all had guns - "just let them try and get me NOW!"

Actually, it seems that the rate of homicide by firearm is only very loosely related to the level of gun ownership. Below is a table I've put together using Wiki data from here and here:

My druggy wugs, my freedom-weedom - REVISED

Time for me to eat a little humble pie. I wrote the following before reading the transcript of evidence taken by the Parliamentary Home Affairs Committee on 24 April - click here for link.

So my account of Brand's views and comments is inaccurate. We bloggers like to call mainstream journalists to account when they are sloppy, so we should be prepared for the lash ourselves when (as in this case) we cop an attitude before getting all the facts.

To set the record straight, he is now off all legal and illegal drugs and advocates an abstinence-based approach, as least for people with addictive personalities like himself. He is against methadone because it is a lazy (and sometimes lethal, ultimately) way to treat addicts. But he does think more of the money spent on arrests for possession could be more productively used in helping drug-takers off their addiction;  and when (gently) pressed, indicates that he favours decriminalisation - see his answer to Questions 259/260.

But do read the second part of the session also, in which, yes, Peter Hitchens (loathed by so many, especially the right-on) gives his well-known views - but so does Mary Brett, who has a background in education and also favours giving clearer, firmer guidance to youngsters on legality. It is not only Hitchens who sees prohibition as a valuable form of protection.

It is also interesting to see witnesses challenge the perception that drug-taking is so widespread that we may as well give up the fight - see Question 276, part of the answer to which reads:

Kathy Gyngell: ...At the moment, 2% of people sniff coke here. People, like Russell Brand, would like us to believe that this is common. It is still not common. It is common in certain circles.

Unfortunately, those circles include the broadcasting, journalism and entertainment industries, with their power to influence, persuade and mislead.

And, usefully, the Committee is challenged on whether it has a pro-drug use agenda (Question 281):

Lorraine Fullbrook: ...Are you making the assumption that the Committee are in favour of decriminalisation or legalisation?

Kathy Gyngell: I was worried that you took your terms of reference, or apparently appeared to—and I indeed wrote to Mr Vaz about it—from the Global Commission on Drugs policy, which is basically a highly financed legalising lobby. That did disturb me because, equally, they had given out—and they were widely disseminated in the press—incorrect figures about drug use spiralling out of control globally when, indeed, the UNODC shows quite clearly that it has been stable. So, that did concern me that your direction of travel may have been influenced by lobbies who are very much in favour of decriminalisation, and if that is not the case I am very happy to hear it.

I've now started in on Mary Brett's drug report (2006, updated 2012) and already I'm getting some startling information, e.g. how very much stronger skunk is than herbal cannabis of the 60s and early 70s. Having lost a friend to skunk-related depression and suicide, I'm not in favour of making the stuff easier to get hold of. Her report is here.

Finally, my apologies to Elby and others for losing their comments in deleting, revising and re-posting this piece. I'm very grateful for their time in reading and responding and I promise to try harder on the technical side next time.

So, warts and all, here is what I said originally, this morning (and over at Orphans of Liberty also):
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I find it's easier to read than hear an argument, so I've transcribed as best I can what Russell Brand said in response to Peter Hitchens' accusation that drug-takers are spoiled rich Western kids who falsely claim that they are not responsible for their actions:

It’s nice to receive your bigotry from another medium other than the hate rag, The Mail on Sunday, from which you normally peddle hatred, insular thought, lack of love between human beings. What I’m saying, whether or not I’m selfish or wearing a hat is redundant and irrelevant. These are the kind of personal attacks, the aggressive styles that you continually adopt to vilify people needlessly. Hey what’s next, criminalise being a bit brown, is that your next policy from the Mail on Sunday? We can’t listen to people like you any more, it’s unevolved as a species.

There is such a thing as society, Peter. In spite of what Margaret Thatcher said there is such a thing as society, we are responsible for one another. If we treat people compassionately and with love, then people will benefit. People of course are responsible for their actions, you’re responsible for writing for a bigoted newspaper [applause].

It would have been better if Hitchens hadn’t prefaced his question with an insult (“the alleged comedian in the hat”) as he then has to be held partly responsible for the damagingly ranting nature of the reply.But what’s clear is that Brand is confused on the issue – at one point we’re not responsible for ourselves, later we are and then we should be responsible for others as well. The Guardian’s report of his evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee is similarly equivocal and self-contradictory.

As to the so-called war on drugs, the Guardian's piece says:

He said he didn't think that drug addicts cared about the legal status of the drugs they were taking, or where they came from or the consequences for those involved in their production.

Not surprising, since there are usually no adverse legal consequences, in this country.
But if any full-on libertarians are reading this, maybe it's time they faced up to the fact that (as Sartre said) we ARE free, inescapably. Libertines and rake-hells just do it, they don't ask Authority to approve.

What semi-detached libertarians want is permission - but to ask that is to give power to another. The radical lover of freedom does what he wills and accepts the consequences - and doesn't whine for some social support safety net.

At 36, Brand is getting a little old for the role of bawling, illogical teenager, demanding autonomy and protection in the same breath. The infantile term "booky-wook" is the tell to his condition, isn't it?

Headteacher to get pay cut

The headteacher of Canary Wharf Comprehensive is to have his bonus reduced, it was revealed today. Mr Garnet's pay package had soared to £17.7 million last year, despite the school failing its Ofsted inspection.

At a meeting with the Governing Body, Mr Garnet explained that his remuneration was strictly a contractual matter, the annual bonus being linked to the size of the school's budget. Since the DfEE had pumped in huge sums to turn around its dire performance, the Head's financial reward had broken all records. The Governors have decided to review the contract.

Speaking to Birmingham Teacher & TA by satphone from his chalet in Gstaad, Mr Garnet said, "It's only fair to point out that the tax on my income will cover my staff's wages for the next two years." Asked whether heads whose schools are failing, should be sacked, he said he was on a Black Run and would have to terminate the interview, but asked us to remind his teachers that pupil reports should be handed into heads of year by Thursday afternoon.

Hanging, flogging... and caning?

Nearly 3 years ago, I was having a whinge about education going to the bow-wows, and one part was about the end of corporal punishment in schools, which some would like to see reinstated. A leader in the campaign to abolish caning was a teacher in Tower Hamlets called Tom Scott, who later left teaching and is now a theatre director.

I often say that the people who make changes in teaching often choose not to stay at the sharp end (if they've ever been there at all), and I thought Scott had been away from the chalkface for so long he'd probably forgotten the details himself.

Not so. Here's a post by the man himself, put up on the 25th anniversary of abolition (July 22, 1986). Some of the examples of maltreatment he cites there should give any fair-minded reader pause for thought. I certainly couldn't defend those teachers.

The only caning I witnessed as a teacher was of a 15-year-old who'd told me to get lost when I was urging a group to work hard and complete their CSE English assignments (in two terms - the previous teacher had left under a cloud in the summer, with his pupils having only 2 acceptable pieces of coursework out of the required 15). A senior teacher gave him the cane once on each hand, and that was the last I saw of him in the classroom. Pour encourager les autres: almost all the others ultimately got passes in both English Language and English Literature - and these were C Band children.

The school was a very large urban comprehensive, but with a tightly-run and authoritarian management. It made a difference to the life chances of many children, I'm sure, even though I think discipline alone will get you no more than 90% of potential. It also allowed teachers to teach - not everyone is a tough guy or the inspirational type who could get children to push peanuts up mountainsides with their noses, as they say.

But yes, I'm sure there were also occasions when authority overstepped the mark. I remember one youngster who these days would be quickly recognized as autistic: he'd tried to flush a teacher's handbag down the lavatory and was consistently denying it to the head and deputy head in the office. The deputy, a slick and tricky type, leaned forward and said in a friendly way, "Look, Jason [as it might be], we all know you did it. Why don't you just admit it and then you can go?" "Okay, yeah, I did do it." With a sweep of the arm, the desk was cleared of papers, "Jason" was hauled over it and given six of the very best, then released - howling fit to bust - to charge out of the office and through reception, clutching his buttocks. Where the parents of a prospective entrant to the school were waiting. They saw the flaming-arsed meteor scud past, followed by the head and deputy strolling out, laughing and swishing their canes.

All most amusing, but "Jason" had to return to my classroom, red-faced and in shock at a turn of events he wasn't equipped to anticipate. On another occasion, he'd gone with a school group to Kingsbury Water Park and noticed a fishing float abandoned in a shallow lake. Without hesitation, he undressed (in front of a mixed group of boys and girls), waded out bollock-naked to retrieve it, and then dressed again. "Jason" was just different, and in the Pupil Referral Unit where I work part-time he would now be treated as such; thrashing would teach him nothing. Autistic children need social rules spelled out to them, like a tourist learning basic phrases in Greek.

There was also something of a bullying culture among the more macho teachers. A teenager came to remonstrate with one of these, who let him into the classroom to continue the discussion, locked the door and listened to a stream of foul-mouthed abuse. As the peroration continued, he quietly interjected "you're forgetting something" from time to time, until the lad put his cursing on hold and said "what?". "The door's locked". The boy's face went white, and he fell silent.

Another teacher - a Northerner - wouldn't tolerate cheek and chinned a member of his own form registration group, knocking him clear over the desk behind. The boy reminded him of it when Sir came to make his farewell ("Now then, scum...") before leaving to teach abroad - but the kid said it with a grin: he knew there hadn't actually been any malice, it was just what the alpha male does to the naughty pup.

A retired colleague did his teaching practice in a school in (I think) Reading, somewhere around the late 60s. His class was a mixed bunch, with the yobbos ensconced at the back. But one made the mistake of taking out a newspaper and reading it behind the upraised lid of his desk. A mistake, because my friend is of Irish descent and has fully inherited the wrathful warrior gene. Leaping forward with a roar of rage, the trainee teacher smashed down the lid, which broke in two pieces across the head of the boy, who fell back stunned in his chair. There was no trouble from that class again.

Pre-World War I, my great-grandfather was a schoolmaster in an East Prussian village (paid for his services partly in firewood etc). He taught the children of agricultural labourers, dairymen and so on - tough kids in a tough time, and unlikely to appreciate the value of literacy and general knowledge. But great-grandpapa was built like a brick shithouse - once, when a man had disagreed with him, he'd suspended his opponent one-handed by the collar outside an upper-storey window until there was a meeting of minds. My ancestor started each day giving all the kids a whack - girls as well as boys. They all learned to read and write, and this might well have saved the lives of a number of the boys when the call-up came, as they would have been given office jobs instead of being sent out to absorb the enemy's bullets.

Quite a different world, and no Professor Challenger will find his way back to it.

Is there any halfway house between the hard ways of the past and the barrack-room-lawyer children of today? Should a civil whack on the hands be allowed again? Or is it all too fraught with difficulty?

Meantime, I shall not be so quick to judge people like Mr Scott.