Obama vs Labour on public accountability

My oh my what a contrast, while Barack Obama tells the American people

"And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government."

Our clear and transparent government have introduced "Freedom of Information (Parliament) Order 2009" a rather ironic name given its main aim is to exempt MP from having their expenses declared in full.

No iPODgate for them. I bet Nick Bourne wished he had won in Worcestershire all those years ago :-)

Still at least there is some opposition to this.

Jo Swinton has an early day motion down while TheyWorkForYou will lead on this from now to the election and are offering practical lobbying suggestions.

Then finally there is a facebook group which is now approaching its 6000th member in about 48 hours

Missed opportunity in the Economic Recovery Group

Overall the reshuffle leaves me feeling we have a stronger team. The promotion of Jenny Willott in particular is a big plus, and moving Steve Webb back to pensions can only strengthen our policy in this key area.

Unlike some of my fellow bloggers I am also happy to see Lembit outside the front bench team. Parliament needs politicians who are prepared to reach out to all of society and leaving him to do just that may yet yield greater rewards for us.

Where I am slightly disappointed is the composition of the Economic Recovery Group. For a party that prides itself in its Federal structures it is a real missed opportunity for us that while the prefix Lord and suffix MP appear on the list the letters AM or MSP do not. Given the key role these two bodies will have in Wales and Scotland one is left asking oneself the question why do we think all the answers must come from Westminster based politicians?

What is the point of Plaid in government?

On the day when Labour drove a coach and horses though the devolution settlement in Wales what is the response from the supposed Party of Wales?

Well according to their web site at 1 minute to midnight the only thing they have to say today is a press release from one of thier AMs in a cross party role challenging Wales to produce role models that challenge size zero and hence reduce the prevalence of eating disorders.

Now don't get me wrong I work hard to give my 6 year old daughter positive role models and applaud this initiative put wasn't something more important going on today?

Something about the secretary of state having a right under legislation to block the will of the Assembly in Cardiff over housing policy

Isn't this the very thing that Plaid told us wouldn't happen. Sure they may have kept their powder dry for the Welsh Language LCO but now they not only have to fight Labour on that one they have to fight the precedent they themselves as part of government have set by accepting this draconian oversight on this order.

So I ask myself again what is the point of Plaid in government? The more I see of it the answer seems to be none

Why speed limiters would be a poor solution

So once again at Christmas time the Government has dug out those old chestnuts for a new attempt at making some decent stuffing. This year it is sat nav driven speed limiters that make it onto the fire for a slow roast. These voluntary devices will save the world, cutting down on fuel emissions and reducing road accidents as we cut speeds to the legal limit we are told.

So the questions have to be are they a good idea and will they work?

Sadly there are a few technical issues to resolve.

1) The mapping is not available off the shelf. Yes, Ordnance Survey have a road network that underpins the geometry used by Teleatlas and Transport Direct/DoT and Navtec have their own alternative. But none have a legally accurate speed model. Nor is it as easy as mapping all the road signs as many don't match the legal orders to the metre.

2) If captured it will have to be updated for every vehicle every time a new road is added or speed limit changed else people wouldn't be able to drive on new roads. The current best commercial release is every 6 weeks from Ordnance Survey using an on-line push service to commercial customers.

3) GPS is accurate enough to work. Well most of the time it is, assuming the right chipset is used, the satellites are visible, your windscreen is not attenuating the signal, you have locked on, you are not in an urban canyon need I go on :-)

4) Even if you are 20m out it doesnt matter really. I suppose it doesn't.... if the road parallel has the same speed limit. My sat nave regularly places me on the service road parallel to the one I am driving in the Southampton area, and as readings are taken at 2sec intervals I have seen it on rare occasions jump off the motorway onto the feeder road alongside... oops that has a 30 limit... can I have my power back before... BANG too late... how much does a 2 hour closure of a motorway cost?

Then there are the safety issues

1 Overtaking the tractor on the rural road is far safer with foot down get by then brake back to the speed limit if you have exceeded it than being stuck at 60 edging past.

2 Will urban users really want to wait the 2 or more minutes it may take for the first satellite lock?

3 I use cruise control regularly on motorways and some straight urban roads when clear the problem with it is it doesn't stay exactly at speed its at best + or - 3mph over 10 minutes worse on steep hills, sure you watch the road not your speed readout but you relax too much

Finally will it work on fuel reduction?

I have to say from personal experience no. On the urban cycle congestion and the stop start acceleration will kill off your economy in any case so its on the open road that things will count.

But for the majority of law abiding users it will have no effect at all. In fact it will make matters worse!!

On what do I base this claim? Well every car I have driven overestimates speed at 70mph by between 4 and 8mph compared to a GPS at steady speed. Compare 3GPS at the same time and they agree to within .2 of each other. As a commercial driver this has given me the confidence that is safe (from a speeding ticket point of view) for me to drive to the GPS not the speedo. The result my long term economy has dropped from 57 to 54mpg (diesel).

I suspect that people like me, who generally drive within the limit, will be those most likely to fit the device. For us the thought would be if I put my foot down I still won't break the limit so I'll trust government technology to ensure I dont break the law.

Those who would make economy savings, the 85-90+ driver, wouldn't touch this with a bargepole in any case.

So is there value in what is proposed?

For the big picture, no this is a red herring.

However if the government are prepared to front the cash to enable local government to produce a nationally consistent set of speed limits in a digital form accurately reconciled with the legal orders AND the road signage, which is then freely available, regularly updated and integrated to all Sat-Navs systems on the market so that all a driver needs to do is glance at their sat-nav screen to know the speed limit then this particular chestnut might actually lead to something tasty and nutritious in time for Xmas 2009.

Emperor Browns new Clothes

First the Germans said, it now the IMF have followed suit Far from being the saving of the British economy the VAT cut is looking more and more like the Emperors new clothes.

But should we be surprised, while the big retailers are happy to pass the savings on what about the rest of the economy.

The publican running a microbrewery "I cant afford to change all my menus and beer prices are actually going up, the duty change over cancels the cut in VAT and that is permanent"

The small builder (and the haulage sector) "increases in fuel duty mean we are paying more not less tax and we cant claim that back"

Hotels personal experience "none of the hotels I use on a regular basis have changed their prices so all this means is margins going up"

Sure I have saved some money as a result the vacuum cleaner we needed to buy was £3 less but I saved far more by shopping around for the Children's presents than I did from VAT changes.

So where are we left, in 373 days VAT will return to normal and if the commentators are to be believed we will still be in deep recession. Potentially worse the rise may even create a double dip scenario with firms either forced to cut margins or see a further hit to spending.

We need confidence back by that point if we are to survive.

So is it working? Just look to the high street today

The Officer Club : up to 70% off

HMV: 2008 chart albums 2 for £10

B+Q: 50% off sale starting tomorrow on bed, bath and kitchen furniture

Adams: savings on everything bar the spring 09 collection

Waterstones : large range of 3 for 2

The sales have started and it isn't even Xmas eve. Compared to this the Chancellors offering is an expensive red herring.

Then look at the queues the bigger the cuts and the cheaper the branding in any case the bigger they were, The Works, Primark, Waterstones were all busy. In short shoppers were trading down and again by far more than 2.5%.

Now the figures in January will tell their own story as no doubt will be the number of businesses in receivership but now is the time for the Chancellor to be bold.

If the stats show the VAT cut isn't working it should be reversed immediately. With the money saved he should.

Invest in insulation of all public buildings.

Underpin the housing market by purchasing vacant property across the country and use it to reduce council housing waiting lists and homelessness.

Initiate further investment in infrastructure modernisation across the UK.

If the chancellor thinks getting the public deeper in debt for consumable items is the way out he is little more than giving whiskey to the dunk on the street corner. We do need to spend but we need publicly visible signs of our investment to build confidence in the rest of the economy not just a cheaper wii to fill our days while we sign on and look for a non existent job

Environment must gain from car bailouts

This week two key factors emerged in relation to our car industry.

Firstly the EU have passed new targets that will reduce CO2 emissions by 20% in 2020 including new targets for vehicle emissions. Secondly it appears at least one UK maker will be cap in hand to the Treasury looking for a bail out to keep in in business over the coming months.

Now let me make it clear I without hesitation support the need for a financial package to the industry. Without it the same decimation of communities that followed the Tory butchery of the coal mines in the 80's will be seen in communities across the land as not just the big factories close but so do all their component suppliers.

However this must not be a blank cheque. If the government are in effect to take a large share in the car industry then it must do so with two reforms tied to the back of its money.

First the industry management processes must be streamlined and modernised. Then second the money must be tied to short, medium and long term commitments to improving the environmental friendliness of their product.

This can be simplistically be done in many ways however I suggest 4 key commitments to start the process off

1 Remove the most polluting variants from their range within six months
2 Place environmental friendliness on a par with safety in all advertising
3 Refocus new research on technology that improves fuel efficiency especially in the stationary traffic jam scenario
4 Commit to the original more ambitious targets that the EU originally proposed for this weeks legislation before the industry lobbyists got their claws in

That way not only will we have a car industry left after this crisis passes but we will have one configured towards ensuring our children have an environment left in which to own their own car in the future

Powys Leisure centres under threat ?

So having turned out the lights and forced the elderly off our streets (good crime reduction idea.. I think not) Powys are turning their attention to the entire community especially those who wish to keep in shape or learn to swim.

It would appear that leisure facilities are under "review" It seems that 16 leisure centres for 125k people is too many.

Of course looked at another way since 16 centres are all that is needed to cover 25% of the land area of Wales we only need another 48 to give everyone the same geographic access as Powys residents. Somehow such a suggestion would be laughable, after all that would mean only 1 or perhaps 2 centres for the whole of Cardiff and there is the core of the problem. Close any of the existing centres and you force residents on a 30+ mile round trip to the nearest alternative. Put another way it would be like expecting all Cardiff residents to use leisure centres in Newport.

The subtext is more interesting though. "areas under scrutiny would be opening hours, leisure centre activities, usage and pricing policy" in short we won't close them but you are going to pay though the nose to use them.

Lighting may have been a thorny question for many but the loss of one of these facilities would be a major hit for any of the towns concerned and send a clear message to the town concerned that they are no longer important.

Looking wider than the obvious it does raise serious issues about how government funds are apportioned to Welsh authorities. No settlement can be completely equitable due to the conflicting demands but there are clearly identified costs of delivering services in rural areas over an above urban ones.

Perhaps what we are seeing now is real impact of this lack of central understanding, or perhaps we are seeing the reality that the all party cabinet and lots of independent councillors just don't work in holding the officers to account and services suffer as a result.