Children or thugs?
There are two explanations for what happened here:
If Hammond and the Treasury really shook their rattles (as this story implies) and said, “We were going to give you the money but now you’ve asked for it so rudely and embarrassed us we’re not going to give it to you after all – so there,” then we’re governed by children.
If, however, this is the government warning off heads of public services, leaders of local councils, union reps and generally pissed-off workers from speaking up and telling us the truth, then we’re ruled by thugs.
I think we’re ruled by thugs.
I don’t get it.
Whenever housing is mentioned, a national programme for the building of council houses for rent, once again, is a very popular idea. So much so as to be widely considered a no-brainer. And it is, isn’t it? Proper public housing, that is, not houses owned by private developers and called ‘social’ to make it sound reasonable.
Housing supply is inadequate for the demand, by the numbers, the type and affordability – actually affordable, relative to wages. Prices are high. Deposits alone can be more than the total cost of the two-bed flat I bought in the mid-eighties. This market means rents are also high. Work is precarious, pay is too low and life’s basics are expensive. Anyway, we know this.
There are the usual and perfectly valid supply/demand concerns over such issues as negative equity, preservation of an older home-owning voter-base, protection of asset values, rising interest rates, the ‘freedom of…
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Amsterdam 1 – Milan 0
London is losing the European Medicines Agency to Amsterdam now that we’re leaving the EU. Brexit has led to a scramble for agencies – so far, the Medicines Agency and the Banking Agency. It was all a bit of a gamble, rather like greyhounds or horses. Or, in the case of the Medicines Agency, a cross between football and the way they choose who goes first in Snooker championships. According to The Guardian:
“Italy’s Europe minister Sandro Gozi said Milan’s loss to Amsterdam in a tie-breaker was like losing the World Cup on the toss of a coin.”
The European Medicines Agency sounds like an important institution to me, yet the language describing its fate would be familiar in the betting shop down the road in any European city. There were “fancied contenders”, says the Guardian report, and “outsiders”; the result was “very tight”, said Dutch minister Halbe Zijlstra; French minister Natalie Loiseau was saddened that Lille had “lost out in the race” (we are, I think, back to horses); Malta, Zagreb and Dublin are said to have “dropped out of the race” for the Medicines Agency, with Ireland hoping to “boost its chances of winning” the Banking Agency.
I suspect this is not good for any of us, and Daniel Zeichner argues, in a separate article, that “losing the European Medicines Agency is bad news for patients, jobs – and the NHS”, which reminds me: it’s not just about the Medicines Agency – it’s about health care in general. Our free-at-the-point-of-use NHS is very expensive at the point of purchase, with all kinds of outfits vying to become its “private partners”, its “providers”; faceless drug companies foisting their goods on to our doctors, with pressure to persuade all patients to take this or that medication whether they need it or not; and has the medical centre chosen the right computer system? Or have they been sold a pup and need to look for another “provider” next year? And will this year’s flu jab work?
It’s all a bit of a gamble.
London loses EU agencies to Paris and Amsterdam in Brexit relocation
Why losing the European Medicines Agency is bad news for patients, jobs – and the NHS
Poor decision-making, Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) and PIP appeals
Last night I spoke at an event in Gray’s inn which bore the title: The Citizen and the State: Poor decision-making and the role of the pro bono Bar.
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