The City and the City

The most striking and entertaining academic writing that I came across in 2011 was by Rem Koolhaas. I found an extract from his book 'S,M,L,XL' in the innocuously titled 'Urban Design Reader' and loved it. Much of the planning literature I've read has been about the process and its aims, whereas Koolhaas makes sweeping, judgemental statements about what already exists. It makes a refreshing change. Also, he's very funny.

Rather than make my own inevitably depressing predictions for the year ahead, I give you the abridged Generic City. It seems like a 2012 sort of place to me.

Identity is like a mousetrap... The Generic City is the city liberated from the captivity of centre, from the straitjacket of identity... The Generic City is what is left after large sections of urban life crossed over into cyberspace... The dominant sensation of the Generic City is an eerie calm... The Generic City is fractal... Its main attraction is its anomie... [airports] are on the way to replacing the city... The in-transit condition is becoming universal... The great originality of the Generic City is to abandon what does not work... The street is dead... Housing is not a problem... [sites] are like holes bored through the concept of city... The roads are only for cars... The Generic City presents the final death of planning... Its most dangerous and most exhilarating discovery is that planning makes no difference whatsoever... It is open and accommodating like a mangrove forest... There is always a quarter called Lipservice, where a minimum of the past is preserved... Tourism is now independent of destination... Shrimp is the ultimate appetizer... The only activity is shopping... Close your eyes and imagine an explosion of beige... Voids are the essential building block of the Generic City... Postmodernism is the only movement that has succeeded in connecting the practice of architecture with the practice of panic... Bad weather is about the only anxiety that hovers over the Generic City... The architecture of the 20th century needs unlimited plane tickets, not a shovel... The new infrastructure creates enclave and impasse... In each time zone, there are at least three performances of Cats. The world is surrounded by a Saturn's ring of meowing.

Whether you agree with him or not, Koolhaas paints quite a vivid picture, doesn't he? His writing reminds me a lot of William Gibson, somehow. Happy new year.

The World Has Changed

As part of my masters course I have to write an extended essay about the government's planning reforms. As I have something of an interest in this and been blogging on the topic for over a year, I may have put in a word requesting an essay title of this nature. I'm looking forward to writing a proper academic critique.

Pursuant to this, I've been digging through the Localism Act, which received royal assent on the 15th November. Are you feeling more local yet? Relative to the rumpus about the draft National Planning Policy Framework, the Localism Act hasn't received much attention in the press. This is interesting, as in planning terms it is much more powerful. It has the force of statute, whereas the NPPF will only be policy and therefore possible to overrule depending on the circumstances. Laws are also far more difficult to dislodge than policy, once enacted.

The Localism Act isn't just about planning, and another post will likely be devoted to a tirade about its housing sections. However, it does fundamentally change the way plans will be made and planning applications determined. Every government in the past half century seems to have made similarly seismic changes, so I'm sure the planning profession will do their best to roll with all the new acronyms. When trying to make sense of the structural changes, I found it useful to construct diagrams*. Sorry, they aren't colourful. In an attempt at clarity, I've missed off various bodies that exist (or did) here and there but aren't (or weren't) ubiquitous, like Urban Development Corporations, London Mayors, Local Enterprise Zones, and the like. Unitary authorities are bundled in with district councils.

This is how planning policy-making was:



All very hierarchical, don't you think? This is how it is now:



Note the direction of the arrows, as this indicates who overrules who. During the Labour years, Local Development Frameworks had to be compatible with Regional Spatial Strategies. Now, Neighbourhood Plans will override Local Plans, which are merely re-labelled Local Development Frameworks. The Neighbourhood Plan has to be adopted by a local referendum first, though.

Am I the only who thinks that the new system looks potentially a little chaotic? I speculated on what the hell the draft bill thought it was doing with neighbourhoods a little while ago. Neither I nor, I suspect, anyone else has any idea how many Neighbourhood Forums there might be, or how neighbourhood referendums might work in practise. The legislation gives no limits as to the minimum or maximum geographic size of a 'neighbourhood'. Given the assumption that Parish Councils will serve the same purposes in rural areas, the easiest urban comparison would seem to be electoral wards. London has 624 of these and Cambridge 14. That's a lot of plans, and there is no requirement for them to be consistent.

As for how individual planning applications are determined, the 2004-2010 way was as follows:

Planning applications are determined in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations, such as national policies, characteristics of the site, and local opposition, indicate otherwise. (Paraphrasing the heavily-amended Section 70 of 1990 Town and Country Planning Act and the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act)

From now on we will do it like this:

Planning applications are determined with regard to the development plan, presumably the Neighbourhood Plan as that overrides the Local one, material considerations, and any local financial considerations relevant to the application. There's also the presumption in favour of sustainable development, although that's in the (currently draft) National Planning Policy Framework rather than statute and therefore would just be a material consideration. 'Any local financial considerations' could include the meagre New Homes Bonus that Local Authorities get when new homes are built; it could potentially also include the financial impossibility of a Local Authority providing sufficient infrastructure to support a proposed new development as a result of CLG cutting their block grant by 20%. (Paraphrasing Section 143 of the Localism Act)

If I had a more mercenary** twin, they would be a planning lawyer, leafing through yacht catalogues in the expectation of an explosion in lengthy planning appeals. If you are in fact a planning lawyer, then good luck in this neighbourhood morass and please consider donating a portion of your fees to support unemployed former public servants.


* Thank you, OpenOffice.
** Evil seems rather strong; I've met some very pleasant planning lawyers.

Reading List

A while back I read an excellent book on the financial crisis: Freefall by Joseph Stiglitz. Although it provides a clear and compelling explanation of how the US housing bubble formed, infected banks around the world, and nearly brought then all down, my overriding impression was that Stiglitz was barely restraining himself from just writing, 'YOU BASTARDS, LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE! LOOK AT WHAT YOU'RE STILL DOING! BASTARDS, BASTARDS, BASTARDS!' I might be projecting slightly there, but Stiglitz is clearly very unhappy about the abject failure of banks to behave responsibly, their apparent inability to admit to any failure whatsoever, and their craven lobbying for their losses to be born by governments. As we all should be, and books like this are very important.

Much of the other literature on the financial crisis that I've read has been too measured. For instance, Gillian Tett's Fool's Gold provides the best explanation I've come across for the toxic financial products that banks invented, with a narrative concerning the team at JPMorgan who came up with many of them. Tett clearly has to tread a fine line - she interviewed these people for her book and presents them as three dimensional characters, so won't fully condemn their behaviour. Nonetheless, the bigger picture cannot be ignored. What should have been technical innovations of interest only to industry specialists spread throughout the financial system like a virus and precipitated the credit crunch, the worst recession for 80 years, and a sudden ballooning of government debts. Stiglitz spells this out clearly, Tett does not.

(As an aside, one of the many ironies of the crisis is that had the US not sold so many of these financial products abroad, as the financial markets are so globalised, their impact would have been much worse in America but the rest of the world's banks would have been relatively unscathed. Thanks for the exports, yanks.)

Neither book addresses the current government debt disaster (crisis seems too gentle a word), as they were both published two years ago. Back then we were worried that banks would not be able to pay their debts. Now it is governments that look doubtful, as the debt burden has been nationalised. The final chapter of this one hasn't even begun yet, but I distinctly doubt it will be pretty.

Meanwhile, my fellow students and I are still spammed by leaflets and emails suggesting we attend recruitment events for investment banks. Naively I assumed that this recruitment hard sell had waned in the past few years; apparently not. These adverts are always very innocuously worded, emphasising words like 'challenge'. It really angers me that quite a few students might swallow this stuff and equate working in The City with succeeding in life. This is what I want to say to them:

You do not have to be a banker.

The careers service assumes that you want to get a job in The City. The big banks are trying to court you with swanky events, free pens, and high starting salaries. They are trying to create an aura of prestige around themselves. But be absolutely clear about what their business is - transferring wealth from the poorly-off to the already wealthy. They aren't creating anything that wasn't already there, just moving worth around and exaggerating the value of investments.

Theirs is an industry that recently experienced systemic, catastrophic failure, and required gigantic bailouts from the public sector. The banks lobbied against any government regulation then systematically failed to manage risk. They have undermined the fundamentals on which the world economy is based and left the mess for others to clear up. Unemployment is high and growing, first world governments are threatening to default on their debt, and there is no way back to business as usual.

Is this really the industry you want to work for? Do you genuinely think your intelligence and skills are best used to make wealth inequalities worse? And the backlash against bankers has hardly begun - do you honestly want to be on the wrong side of it?

It may seem at the moment like banking is the most obvious career option, simply because banking firms make the loudest play for your attention. There are many other things you could do. In my third year as an undergraduate I shared a house with six other women. The seven of us are all ambitious, intelligent, and driven, but not one of us got a job primarily motivated by profit. One teaches English as a second language, one monitors dangerous diseases at the Health Protection Agency. Another is an army officer, yet another works as a civil servant in the Treasury. Amongst out number you will also find a doctor and a Teaching Assistant who writes novels on the side. I myself have worked in Local Government, helping to plan new communities for the past three years. Can you honestly tell me that our various talents and abilities would all be better spent trading collateralised debt obligations?

The world is facing massive challenges - climate change, terrible inequalities between and within states, demographic shifts, not to mention rebuilding our economies to promote well-being rather than endless, impossible growth. Those are real challenges worth confronting, rather than pursuing the pseudo-achievement of pushing up refinancing fees. There are a myriad of career options out there; don't waste your brain and your life on banking.

If you're still tempted, at least go in with open eyes. Read Freefall and Fool's Gold, then try and tell me that Goldman Sachs et al deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Personally, my next career step is to apply for a PhD, as I find myself very much enjoying the life of research. I doubt there will be much of any funding around, but I intend to have a damn good look.

Much Ado About Windfarms

Now that I've been made redundant, I've decided to become an armchair auditor. As an employee of a local council, I was under an obligation not to allow my personal opinions to interfere with the execution of local councillors' wishes. Such is the democratic operation of local government. This can at times be acutely frustrating, as local councillors sometimes made decisions that were very difficult to justify, and which I personally disagreed with entirely. To begin, an issue of particular interest to me: renewable energy.

South Cambridgeshire District Council covers the doughnut of attractive villages and farmland around Cambridge. It has no major population centres and a lot of picturesque and very expensive rural housing. The council has a rather two-faced approach to renewables; they love solar panels but hate wind farms.

This August their Climate Change Working Group were updated on a project to install solar panels on South Cambridgeshire Hall, the council's office in Cambourne. Which I believe is already quite an energy efficient building, as it would built quite recently. At a full council meeting in July it was also resolved to review its policies in order to encourage the installation of solar panels on listed buildings. Moreover, it is encouraging that South Cambs have kept up their local councillor Climate Change Working Group, as too many Conservative councils ditched any such thing as soon as Pickles lumbered into CLG.

However, their seemingly enlightened approach is rather undermined by Motion 90B:

It was RESOLVED that this Council supports seeking energy from renewable resources. However, applications for wind farms (2 turbines or more) cause deep concerns to our residents by nature of their size, scale and noise. This Council believes that a minimum distance of 2 kilometres between a dwelling and a turbine should be set to protect residents from disturbance and visual impact. If the applicant can prove that this is not the case a shorter distance would be considered. This will be addressed during the review of the Local Development Framework.

Notice the absence of any evidence whatsoever to support the figure of 2 km. It was apparently arbitrarily chosen to ensure that wind farm development would be considered unacceptable throughout South Cambridgeshire, as one local councillor commented that nowhere in the district is less than 2 miles (note different metric) from a dwelling. As far as I am aware, there is no map available to show what, if any, area in the district would be acceptable for wind turbine development under this edict. For reference, the government standard for a buffer zone between a wind turbine and a built-up area is 600 metres.

I was pleased to see that a member of the public responded back to this with a very sensible question:

In what way exactly would a wind turbine be judged differently to another structure of a similar size such as a manufacturing plant, water tower, crane or communications mast etc. as regards visual impact or noise? Does the motion mean that a planning application for a wind turbine might be rejected whereas an application for some other development of equivalent size, noise etc. would be considered for approval?

The councillor's answer shows how hollow the motion was - all planning applications must be considered on their merits, and refusals on the basis of, 'I just don't like wind turbines, so there' will be overturned at appeal anyway. Without evidence that a wind turbine within 2 km of a house will have a significantly detrimental effect, the whole thing is pointless posturing.

This stance would be more defensible were wind and solar capacity in the area comparable. The East of England Renewable Energy Capacity Study looked at the technical potential for renewable energy just last year. The whole report can be found here. It doesn't disaggregate to district level, but the whole of Cambridgeshire has the technical potential to produce 45,536.8 Gigawatt Hours of electricity from wind. The figure for solar is 230 GwH. South Cambridgeshire has a lot of agricultural land, ideal for wind farms, but lacks roofs to put solar panels on so the contrast in potential is likely to be even more stark.

I reserve most of my rancor for Cambridgeshire County Council, though. The County owns quite a bit of agricultural land, which it has been trying to use more effectively to bring in money. One plan was to site wind turbines on some of this land. Councillors agreed to this and a considerable amount of feasibility work was done. This was the plan:

Should all of the 4 sites proceed as outlined, based on current values the Council's income could peak at an annual rent of more than £700,000. The corresponding agricultural rent for the land lost would be less than £1,000

Plus, of course, more renewable energy and lower emissions. Local news coverage was positive and a considerable amount of consultation took place in the identified sites.

Then Councillor Nick Clarke became leader of Cambridgeshire County Council. A report went to the County Council Cabinet on the 6th September seeking to defer and basically kill the project.

It's worth reading that report, in order to confirm that there is no justification provided for the decision. Officers couldn't come up with any reasons for it in their report, but politicians did it anyway. Putting aside the environmental implications, £10,000 has already been spent on developing the project, and thus wasted if it stops. These two sections of the report (which, please note, is supposed to set out why this project isn't happening) are worth quoting:

[...] if wind farm development proceeded on all four sites over the twenty-five year life of the leases the Council’s income would peak at close to £900,000 per annum, unadjusted for rent reviews or inflation. In addition there would be direct payments by developers into local community funds of about £80,000 per annum. There are also Government proposals to allow local authorities to retain all of the business rates from wind farm sites in their area.

[...] Several tenants, with the Council’s encouragement, have been investigating the potential for small scale wind turbines on their holdings. One tenant was looking at a 100m tall but most were looking at 20m turbines which are smaller than a telecommunications mast. These capitalise on Feed in Tariffs which are expected to change in April 2012 and are considered by many to be an excellent business opportunity and are mostly receiving planning consents from District Councils.

It is also proposed that these developments are halted too. These have less of a visual impact than full size wind turbines and produce good financial returns for both the tenants and the Council. It is proposed to reimburse one tenant’s abortive costs for feasibility work which will be in the region of £5,000.

So Cambridgeshire County Council is forgoing a considerable amount of money, losing several thousand through contract breaking and abortive work, all because 'Fenland has too many wind farms already'. As the report notes, that is a purely anecdotal view; the people consulted in detail about the projects had much less negative, simplistic opinions.

You might ask why I blame this decision, which I believe is nothing short of moronic short-sighted NIMBYism, on Councillor Nick Clarke. Well, he boasts about it on his blog. His comment about putting people before profit is priceless. His inaugural speech as leader began with the phrase 'open for business'. He believes Cambridgeshire County Council should above all support and involve businesses, although apparently not those that develop wind farms. Choosing to 'put people first' in this context is a bit rich when you consider the cuts to transport, schools, and social care which merited no such consideration. Indeed, some of those cuts need not have happened if the council had, say, uncovered a large and steady source of annual income from its farmland.

Despite Councillor Clarke clearly thinking this decision was a crowd-pleaser, local media coverage was at best ambivalent. But this wasn't the end of the story, as not every County Councillor agreed with Clarke. The Enterprise, Growth, and Community Infrastructure Overview and Scrutiny Committee called in the decision. Although they didn't have the authority to overturn it, they have kicked it back to Cabinet, with a request to give reasons this time.

Quote from the minutes:

In discussion, Committee Members raised the following issues:

Wind farm development was supported and promoted by both local and national policies, and was also the policy of the Administration’s party. There was no rationality, either through evidence or policy basis, in the Cabinet decision;

Pointed out that there was a natural limit to the number of wind turbines that could be constructed. The Cabinet decision would not stop wind turbines being developed, it would merely stop the County Council and County Council tenants receiving any benefits from wind farm development;

A number of Committee Members indicated that they had been consulted prior to this Cabinet decision and had indicated that whilst some of them were not opposed to windfarms in principle, they were opposed to further wind farm development on the basis of the feedback received from their residents. It was also pointed out that the subsidies offered to develop wind farms ultimately came from tax payers’ pockets;

Suggested that the blanket ban approach needed to reconsidered, possibly to include permitting small applications below a certain height, or on a case-by-case basis;

Stressed the Council’s responsibility for its tenant farmers, and the need to reconsider this decision very carefully on the basis of evidence, and in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders; [...]

Cabinet will discuss this again on the 25th October, with a recommendation to at least lift the blanket ban on wind turbines. Cabinet meetings are open to the public, but unfortunately I have lectures that clash so can't attend. No doubt it will be enlightening.

Here is a further insight into the County Council Leader's views on wind farms:

I recognise that there are an extreme range of opinions from eco warriors who want to save the world and think that emitting less carbon in Cambridgeshire is the answer to those who just don’t like them towering over the landscape.

The trouble is if you mix in some political mantra, a Liberal Democrat opposition party who have lost their way and finding it very difficult to make any traction politically and a ruling group who want to make a positive difference for the people of Cambridgeshire a fuss is bound to happen.

(That is a direct copy and paste; I have resisted the urge to correct the punctuation and grammar.)

This should not be a party political issue. The wind turbines were proposed by a Conservative County Council administration and are now being ditched by another Conservative County Council administration. Moreover, Councillor Clarke admits that there hasn't been a proper consultation, just a few people from Fenland saying they don't like wind turbines. When this much money is at stake, that's just not good enough.

Now that I'm no longer working for a local council, I, like Nick Clarke, can 'tell it as it is'. In this case, a huge pile of bullshit. Putting people before profits, huh? People were not given the choice between a few wind turbines and local services cut being because the council ignored a £900,000/year source of income!

Properly designed wind farms, sited with local consultation, do not blight people's lives. Rolling blackouts might, and that is what we will have in 2018 if we do not invest in ALL methods of energy generation, as well as energy efficiency. There isn't a choice between wind farms and business as usual, there's a choice between wind farms and blackouts. Councillors claim that their electorates wouldn't tolerate wind farms, because they are happy to listen to small but very vocal campaign groups. Turbines aren't appropriate everywhere, but councillors wilfully ignore empirical evidence, which they seem to see as threatening. By promoting a needlessly adversarial approach to planning wind farms, councillors are preventing communities from sharing in their financial benefits. Neither is it true that everyone in Cambridgeshire hates them on principle. In Gamlingay the community are installing one of their own.

However, there are reasons to be cheerful. I comfort myself that Councillor Clarke can huff and puff against wind farms all he likes, but it'll do him little good. Although it can impede wind development on its own land, the County Council has no planning powers to prevent it elsewhere; these lie with the districts. Moreover, the anti-wind districts will find that the presumption in favour of sustainable development overturns every refusal of permission on appeal.

I've largely lost faith in the ability of local government to tackle climate change, at least in its current form. The government is wilfully ignoring the incongruence between the binding targets of the Climate Change Act and Carbon Budgets and the fact that many Conservative local councillors won't even listen to the phrase 'climate change'. There is no leadership on environmental issues to be found in most local council chambers, just apathy and cowardice disguised as 'reflecting the concerns of the electorate'. Their electorate includes young people like me, and our voices are not being heard.

This is not the case throughout Cambridgeshire, though. Cambridge City Council deserves much wider recognition for its efforts to tackle climate change. There is also a project trying to approach planning for renewable energy in a constructive, positive manner: the Cambridgeshire Renewables Infrastructure Framework. It is well worth getting involved with, as it brings individuals, businesses, and politicians together to discuss renewable energy reasonably, like adults. Such informed dialogue is badly needed to redress the balance. Local councillors are making retrogressive and short-sighted decisions; their electorates must hold them to account.

RIP Communism and Capitalism

A not-terribly-welcome aspect of my new student lifestyle is the odd night of insomnia when I simply cannot get my brain to shut up. Now that it is being encouraged to think, it doesn't necessarily want to stop just because the time happens to be, say, 4am. Luckily I don't usually have to get up the next morning. Less luckily, I do need to tomorrow.

Recently I've been thinking about free market capitalism and Marxism. Until the financial mayhem started in 2008, it was quite widely accepted that the former had triumphed and Marxism was more or less dead. Francis Fukuyama's 'End of History and the Last Man' is the best-known exponent of this. (To my shame, I haven't read it yet.) From what I can tell, Fukuyama and a host of other commentators assumed that democracy and free market capitalism were inseparable. The vast human suffering caused by the totalitarian regimes, of the USSR and China in particular, made socialism something to dread. Marx' proscriptions for the future had been fatally undermined.

Something I recently noticed about the financial shenanigans (which really need a definitive name but are unlikely to get one before they end) is that they follow Marx' view of capitalism as unstable and subject to periodic crises. Free market capitalism assumes that markets are self-correcting, yet the debt crisis in which we find ourselves was caused by the operation of free markets. Large international banks systematically understated and mismanaged risk in pursuit of profit, in the process causing an asset-price bubble that could not be sustained. Once property prices in the US began to fall and mortgage defaults increased, financial products that had been valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars became effectively worthless. This took place because unregulated free markets failed. Bankers' incentives did not encourage them to promote societal or even economic good. Information asymmetries were rampant, market power was highly concentrated, and risk was incredibly poorly managed. These problems occurred in markets that were either unregulated or extremely lightly regulated, and did not self-correct. Governments were required to step in and shore up these banks, in order that their wider roles holding deposits and lending to individuals and businesses could continue.

The bailouts have nationalised the losses made by banks, whilst their profits remain privatised. I oversimplify somewhat, but this is broadly why we now have terrifying levels of sovereign debt. Three years ago the fear was that banks had too much debt and not enough assets, now the same fear is gripping whole nations. The operation of free financial markets has destabilised entire countries. If he could, I'm sure Marx would say, "I told you so."

Now that the debt has been nationalised, it is everyone's problem. Repayment is hindered by the fact that the mind-bogglingly large sums were effectively borrowed against the value of future economic growth. That growth is no longer happening, largely as a result of the ongoing credit crunch and austerity measures designed to reduce the debt. Even the IMF admits this. The great economist Keynes took the view that recessions are caused by inadequate overall demand for goods and services; Marx also noted that capitalism periodically suffers a crisis of overproduction. Arguably, we could get growth going by stimulating demand - but this would require taking on more debt, which returns us to the starting point. In order to grow as we did before, we'd have to recreate the conditions that got us into the current doldrums. I doubt this is even possible.

Moreover, now seems to be a very good time to consider whether it is socially and environmentally desirable to stimulate demand and therefore consumption. Doesn't the Western world consume more than enough already? Is endless economic growth worth the social costs? However, very few seem to be speaking up for a Marxist revolution, for the very good reason that however accurate his assessment of current capitalism might seem, memories of communism's failure are still fresh. In my idealistic view, maybe we've gone beyond the capitalism/communism dichtomy and into a post-ideological era? Perhaps another ideology will appear, but for the moment we need to work with what we've got, two big ideas with big flaws and a wealth of information as to how they've been implemented with varying success. I think the new theory should be pragmatism. Not every country, region, or city will desire or require the same balance of free markets, regulation, public participation, taxation, etc.

There should be more choice and less absolutism. Rather than trying to shore up a clearly broken system, the EU could be considering what reforms would promote the greatest wellbeing. This is obviously easier said than done, given that institutions have their own momentum and the banks are fighting hard to survive despite having brought about their own ruin. However, I am a great believer in the power of imagining a better world. In the UK at least, this has fallen out of fashion and an apparent political and economic death spiral has made us a nation of apathetic pessimists. In a recent yougov poll, 80% of respondents said the state of Britain's economy was quite bad or very bad. Just 3% said it was good or very good. When asked how they thought the financial situation of their household would change over the next year, 62% said it would get worse and 8% said it would get better. Meanwhile, 53% said that Cameron is doing badly as Prime Minister, 54% said Milliband is doing badly as Labour leader, and 69% said Clegg is doing badly as Liberal Democrat leader. In response to a question about whether the current government is good for 'people like you', 24% said good and 53% bad. As a snapshot, that's quite a revealing survey.

In order to avoid pervasive depression, both economic and social, we need to first accept that there must be ways to make things better. I don't know what the new economies of pragmatism would look like; hopefully when I get round to reading 'Prosperity without Growth' I'll start getting an idea. What I have noticed is that The Economist chastises the Occupy Wall Street movement for a lack of ideology and lauds the economic successes of China whilst lamenting the decline of America. Lest we forget, China is far from a free democracy. The most successful free market economy of recent years is ostensibly communist; how can this be reconciled with the supposed opposition of the two ideologies? In my opinion, it no longer can be.


Soon to come: recommended reading about the credit crunch and Cambridgeshire's sometimes fraught relationship with renewable energy.

Begin Again

Last Friday was the final day of my job and of the organisation that I worked for. The last few of us recycled, donated, tidied, or claimed whatever was left in the office, had a final lunch, switched off the lights, locked up and left. It was a very emotional moment. Although all of us have found new occupations of one sort or another, we are conscious of losing a team that worked incredibly well. From my experience and others, that seems all too rare. It is also dispiriting that our projects will either cease or be transferred to another organisation with considerably less resources to devote to them. I hope to find an equally rewarding job with equally excellent colleagues one day. At the moment it seems like a long shot.

This was my desk at the end:



I now officially a redundant public servant and MPhil student. The transition from employment to studenthood was of necessity very quick, as I was made redundant on Friday and inducted into my course on Monday. Student life is different to working in local government in a number of notable ways. Most strikingly, I not only can think for myself but am strongly encouraged to. Since the Coalition government arrived on the scene, local government has been forced to bite its tongue about the cavalcade of admonishments, changes, and cuts that have been rapidly dished out. I have written briefing notes summarising new policies, without the freedom to point out their immense drawbacks (other than here, naturally). In some ways more significantly, as a student I no longer have to censor myself to avoid offending the sensibilities of local councillors. I quite understand why local government employees must do this to some extent, but after a while it rankles. Moreover, I got tired of having to dumb explanations down, reduce reports to three bullet points, and take out long words that councillors might not understand. I no longer need be entirely neutral about local issues on this blog and intend to take advantage of it.

The other graduate students I've encountered so far have gone straight from undergraduate to postgraduate study. I am apparently somewhat exotic by virtue of having real-world experience of a full time job. That makes me greatly appreciate something they take for granted - intellectual freedom. My MPhil work is largely independent and self-taught, my thesis topic entirely my own choice. Although I will doubtless become accustomed to this and somewhat blasé in time, at the moment it's intoxicating. However, the five year gap between degrees does leave me in the somewhat peculiar situation of being eight years older than the undergraduate first-years, and yet frequently mistaken for one.

Blast from the Past

The countdown to redundancy for everyone left in my office now stands at 8 working days. Accordingly, desks are being cleared out and many things unearthed. I have, for instance, found a copy of the FT from April 26th 2010 with an article about 'The Demolition Job that Awaits the Next Government'. With hindsight, it is rather striking.



Apologies for the poor quality cameraphone photo. The main point of the editorial on the left is that £37 billion of savings will need to be found from the public sector in order for the deficit to be halved by 2014. It is noted below the pie chart that all three political parties have failed to identify anything like that level of cuts in their announcements to date. Incredibly, of the three it was the Conservative party that had at that time announced the smallest level of cuts. £7 billion a year, to be precise.

The FT's modest proposals for cuts were as follows:

• Axe two aircraft carriers, which has not occurred.
  
  
• Reduce prison numbers by 25%, which has has not occurred, although Ian Duncan-Smith did entertain thoughts in this direction. Then came the wrath of the Daily Mail, and the riots. Thus the prison population has reached a record high.
  
  
• 5% cut in public sector pay for a year, which has not occurred, as the FT high-handed assumed that central government could just do this whenever they wanted. Which wouldn't be very localist, frankly. Public sector pay has been frozen, though, and with inflation running at 4.5%, that amounts to a cut in real terms. Moreover, there are now 240,000 fewer jobs in the public sector than there were last year.
  
  
• Means test child benefit, which is in progress.
  
  
• Scrap winter fuel payments and free TV licenses. Wow, the FT really cares about the elderly. This hasn't happened and there are no plans to do it. This government is far keener on withdrawing support from the young.
  
  
• Halve spending on NHS dentistry. Here is a rich irony for you, as this is presumably predictated on NHS dentistry being inefficient. It is one of the areas of the NHS run on more competitive, private sector lines. The government is now planning to bring that same ethos to the entire NHS in the health and welfare reform bill. Will the result be cost savings, chaos, worse health outcomes, or none of the above? Who knows - certainly not the government.
  
  
• Stop primary and secondary school building for three years. There is more irony to be found here. Building Schools for the Future was scrapped, and Local Authority budgets cut so that any new schools would need to be developer funded. However, the Free Schools policy will mean more schools coming into being. Is money being saved overall? The Department for Education took a smallish budget cut over the spending review period, so presumably that's the idea.
  
  
• Halve spending on Teaching Assistant salaries. Again, the FT is getting a bit high-handed if it thinks central government can just reach down into schools and fire half of their TAs. That said, many such jobs are probably looking less secure as schools look to absorb funding cuts.
  
  
• Cut funding to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Island by 10%. The government went for 7% overall.
  
  
• Halve spending on road maintenance and upgrades. This takes in two sets of cuts; to the Department for Transport (which is responsible for trunk roads) and to upper-tier local councils (which are responsible for local roads). The former took a 12.6% cut, the latter about 26% cut. A number of planned major motorway upgrades have been ditched and many local authorities have cut their pothole budgets. Whether this amounts to halving spending is hard to tell.
  
  
• Delay Crossrail for at least three years. This has not happened; Boris managed to save Crossrail from the axe.
  
  
• Withdraw concessionary fares for pensioners. The FT does seem to have something against the elderly. This has not happened and is unlikely to.

Abolishing the Child Trust Fund and Education Maintenance Allowance were also mentioned in the article - both of which are happening.

That amounted to £37.4 billion cuts over four years. In the Comprehensive Spending Review the government announced £83 billion cuts over four years, more than twice as many. Quoth the FT on April 26th 2010:

Spending cuts on the scale outlined in the Financial Times' analysis appear too politically risky to contemplate

Excuse me while I laugh bitterly. The FT proposed instead to raise income tax and VAT. The coalition have done the latter, but also cut or frozen the budgets of all government departments. Significantly, they have laid particularly hard into the welfare state, which the FT treated as sacrosanct.

What a change in just over a year. I suspect that the 'political risk' the FT mention was simply steamrollered by shock and awe tactics. The public sector must be cut immediately or the country will run out of money and citizens will have to start eating one another! (Only a slight exaggeration of the Spending Review rhetoric.) I think the FT underestimated people's apathy and lack of awareness of what the public sector does. Few protest when told that a government department's funding is being cut by 20%; it just seems like a number. When that means a fall in income or the closure of a local service, complaints start. By then, it is probably too late.