Tabloid Edition

Timmy Elsewhere

Shortie at the ASI on women’s pay and that report.

On that subject, Polly Toynbee. It’s extremely dificult for me to believe that she’s actually read the report as issued. She’s simply listed all of her prejudices as if they came from the Commission, not actually understanding any of the points that they do make.

Why do part timers get less per hour than full timers? Because they cost more to employ. Is direct discrimination the main problem? Not according to the report, no. That is the time that women take out of the workforce to have and to raise children. This reduces their productivity and it’s not surprising that this also reduces their pay.

Want a solution? Reduce the amount of time that women take out of the labour force. Thus the cure for the gender pay gap is to cut the length of time of maternity pay.

Free Traders

Russia is to crack down on the low level traders, those who shuttle across the borders with huge suitcases of goods for resale. Bit of a nonsense really as those with the connections and moving trainloads pay even less in duty and bribes. Still, one customer poses a good question:

Marina Anshakova, a 57-year-old pensioner shopping in the Dorogomilovsky market, was outraged by that prospect. “Where do they expect me to shop?” she said. “The market is the only place where I can find cheap things. Why should the Government make me pay more?”

Quite. Why should there ever be import duties on anything?

No Singing!

Official advice for those attending the soccer World Cup in Germany this summer:

The guide also addresses the spectre of unpleasant behaviour involving English fans and specifically the problem of anti-German sentiment among a hard core of supporters.

In an introductory letter to the fans, Sven-Göran Eriksson, the England manager, writes: “This rivalry [with Germany] must not be allowed to go beyond decent behaviour.

“I’d particularly like to call on you to avoid any anti-German singing and chanting during the World Cup. The song which we really don’t want to hear is the one about ‘Ten German bombers’.” The unsavoury chant, which celebrates the RAF’s success in shooting down Luftwaffe planes during the Second World War, was widely sung by England fans during the Euro 2004 tournament in Portugal. A later chapter in the booklet, written by the Home Office, emphasises the improved behaviour by English fans in recent years.

We did indeed hear it a lot down here. Just to remind you, so that you can brush up on it and know what not to sing, here’s how it goes:

The particular focus of the Football Association's concern is a song to the tune of She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain.

The lyrics say: "There were ten German bombers in the sky...", the next verse being: "The RAF from England shot one down..." The song continues, counting down from ten bombers to zero.

 

Women and Work Commission

So the Women and Work Commission published its report yesterday. The Torygraph Leader appeals to me:

Some of the commission's conclusions should, though, be treated with scepticism. The large numbers of women now in the professions, and in highly paid jobs in other successful sectors of the economy, prove that, for some time, careers advisers have been painting a refreshingly complete picture of opportunities.

That pay rates in some jobs that predominantly employ women - such as care and ancillary staff - are lower reflects both the large reservoir of labour available and the tendency of such posts to fit in with the other responsibilities many women have, such as caring for children. Society does not arbitrarily set wage rates: markets do.

For many women, lower pay is the price for choosing to have a family as well, and it is right that they - and not their employers - should bear the cost of that choice.

Also, women who have had career breaks may be paid less because they have less experience as a result. That, too, is only fair. Our economy needs women at all levels in the workplace, and could not function without them.

Having actually read the report I’d say it’s actually pretty good in its fact gathering and not so good in its conclusions. They point out that direct discrimination does exist but is a small part of the problem (5% of the gender gap in the financial professions, for example). The careers point is well made above. What was true in the past, and is therefore still true for the older women in the workforce, is no longer so. The majority of graduates, entry level lawyers and doctors, are female, for example.

They also point to but seem to have trouble in acknowledging, the fact that part time and flexible jobs cost the employer more than full timers. Thus those doing the jobs will get less per hour.

The problem, if you want to define it as one, revolves around the amount of time taken out of the workforce for the raising of children. That plus a bit of employers’ worries that someone might be about to do that. Taking a year or two out means missing on promotions and pay rises, rusty work skills, more training required on return and so on. Do this two or three times and it’s not all that surprising that incomes fall.

As I say, this might strike you as a problem or it might not. You pays your money and you takes your choice to my mind. But say it is a problem in your mind. What might be the solution? If the problem is taking too much time out from building that career then reducing the time taken out would seem logical.

So, the solution to the gender pay gap: reduce maternity leave.

Rees Mogg on The Maximum Tone

Ol’ Billy doesn’t normally get much of my time but he’s come out with a real corker today:

It is all utter foolishness. The people of London elected Ken Livingstone on two occasions to be their mayor. They may have been mistaken to do so; he has never had my vote. But that was their democratic decision. Mr Laverick, and his two colleagues on the panel, decided that Mr Livingstone should not be mayor for four weeks of his second term.

No one ever elected them to their high office. They are not a court. Their closest connection with democracy is that they were appointed by the Member for Hull East. May Heaven forgive the voters of Hull East. The panel was established by law — one of the many foolish laws passed by the Blair administration — but they were not enforcing the law, they were enforcing their own subjective discretion.

I would not call Mr Laverick a war criminal, a concentration camp guard or a scumbag, because I do not think he is any of these things. I would only call him a pompous donkey, who has no understanding of his limited importance in the scheme of things, or of the respect he owes to the democratic choice of the people of London. No doubt, if I were a local councillor, he would find that my criticisms were “unnecessarily offensive and insensitive” — as indeed I hope they are. Fortunately the press still enjoys free speech, even if the Mayor of London does not.

The issue is more than a matter of a show-off mayor or a silly sub-committee of an unelected quango abusing its inappropriate powers. It concerns the ancient issue of “due process of law” that underlies Magna Carta, the English common law and the Constitution of the United States. Without due process, there is no law. A merely subjective judgment, lacking judicial safeguards, by an unelected tribunal, does not constitute due process. It is no better than the process by which Robespierre sent aristos to the guillotine, though one must admit that Ken makes a comic aristo and a four-week suspension is a milder penalty..

The Prime Minister knows what the issue is. He is against due process as such. He has written a most extraordinary attack on the whole concept in yesterday’s Observer. The article is so incautious that he must have written it himself.

“In theory,” Tony Blair writes, “traditional court processes and attitudes to civil liberties could work. But the modern world is different from the world for which these court processes were designed.” This view that due process is obsolete explains the Prime Minister’s conduct; it explains the connection between extradition without safeguards, detention without trial, Asbos without criminal offences, subjective and discretionary judgments, police powers to arrest, and increasing ministerial powers. They are all characteristic of Blair legislation; they all avoid due process of law.

I wish I could think of an appropriately “offensive and insensitive” epithet to describe Tony Blair. Perhaps “antinomian” would do.

Antinomian (yes, I did have to look it up) seems a bit weak. Fascist? Fuckwit?

But don’t you love the line "so incautious he must have written it himself"?

Sam Leith on The Maximum Tone

Referring to that article in The Observer yesterday Sam Leith makes an  interesting point:

The Prime Minister yesterday wrote an article seeking to defend his record on civil liberties. "On ID cards," he wrote, "there is a host of arguments, irrespective of security, why their time has come".

Wouldn't you be a bit more reassured if he made those arguments, rather than simply alluding to them?

ID Cards Survey

People are stupid.

They agree with all of the arguments against them yet still think they’re a good idea.

The Da Vinci Code

One slight problem with this lawsuit over Dan Brown’s excreable book, The Da Vinci Code.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh are suing their own publishers, Random House, claiming Dan Brown's story lifts from their 1982 book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, itself a best seller.

This non-fiction work deals with theories that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child, and that the blood line continues to this day - with the Catholic Church trying suppress the discovery.

It’s not as if these two actually came up with the theory themselves. Isn’t it in one of the Gnostic Gospels?

Telegraph Watch

Wild board have re-established themselves across the country

I know boars aren’t the brightest of all animals but as thick as two short planks?

Public Sector Pensions

So the Treasury is now calculating the public sector pensions costson the same basis as it forces the private sector to. Not surprisingly, using the new discount rate, the sums have ballooned.

The Treasury figures disclosed that the provision for the NHS pension scheme this year is some £26.8 billion, rather than the £7.8 billion in the previous year's figures.

The Teachers' Pension Scheme for England and Wales is £22.2 billion, compared to £6.9 billion, while the Armed Forces scheme is £14.5 billion rather than £3.8 billion.

The Civil Service superannuation scheme, meanwhile, is £16.7 billion, compared to £5.5 billion previously.

The increases were caused by a change in the so-called "discount rate" used to calculate how fast interest rates will erode the pensions bill.

The Government had previously used a generous formula including a discount rate of 3.5 per cent on its liabilities but has reduced that to 2.8 per cent - closer to rates used by the private sector.

One interesting question. Is that a one off adjustment showing the effects of the change? Or are those figures annual? Is the debt accumulating at 71 billion each year? I hope not as that’s about half of the entire income tax take.

"The annual cash payment from unfunded schemes will rise gradually from about 1.5 per cent of GDP now to 2.1 per cent by the middle of the century, putting the UK in a much better position than many other developed economies to deal with the fiscal challenges of the future."

Hhhmm. 2.1% of GDP? No, that’s about 5 p on income tax.  Still, it’s a pretty large sum to be paying just for public sector pensions, isn’t it. Perhaps they might need to come of the inflation proofing, early retirement and final salary things. After all, they do get paid more than the private sector anyway, don’t they.