UK Riots: Part 2

 Politics  No Responses »
Aug 202011
 

Now that some time has passed, it is time to rethink thoughts about the riots in the UK. Everyone (including me) reacted very quickly in the wake of the riots in London and elsewhere with their immediate reactions. Not always with impressive results, and indeed even those who had a reasonable point to make would probably agree that the situation is more complex than at first supposed.

Was It Really That Bad ?

Well of course it was to those who were actually caught up in the riots, but sometimes we get the impression (especially amongst the more … excitable foreign bloggers) that the rioting was worse than it actually was. For instance the London riots involved 22 districts out of a total of 326 districts, or in other words only 6.7% of London by area was involved in the rioting. And that’s an exaggeration – for instance my brother lives in Enfield which saw two nights of rioting, but hardly saw a thing other than the Sony warehouse burning in the distance.

Or by population, the police estimate that up to 3,000 people will be charged with various offences relating to the riots. Let us assume that only 1/5 of the people involved in the riots will ever be charged with anything – that adds up to a total number of rioters of 15,000. Given the population of London is 12.58 million, only 0.11% of the population was rioting. Even if I’m out by a factor of 10 (so there were really 150,000 rioters), that would still be only 1.1% of the population were rioting.

Even if you assume all those 15,000 rioters were from Croyden (a place with some of the most serious riots), a place with a population of around 330,000 people, we find that 15,000 out of 330,000 gives a percentage of 4.5% – so even when we over inflate the figures for rioters ridiculously, we still get a tiny proportion who actually took part.

So what we saw recently, was the result of a tiny proportion of the population. Even amongst young people, the majority were appalled at what they were seeing and what is less commonly reported is that the volunteers who turned out to cleanup the mess caused by the rioters included even more young people than took part in the riots.

One of the other things that doesn’t get so well reported is that the rioters were not all young people – there were more “mature” adults in the mix as well. It also wasn’t particularly racial either – all “races” were involved in the rioting.

So what about the underlying causes for the riots ?

No Excuses: They Were All Just Criminal Thugs

Well, there’s no arguing with the fact that the rioters were criminal thugs … or at least the worst ones were. But just disregarding underlying causes is the action of the feeble-minded. Why were these criminals rioting this year and not last year ? Or the year before ?

There is some underlying reason why the riots occurred this year and not in other years. Whatever underlying causes turned these people into rioters should be examined to see if there’s a viable method of stopping that from happening – whilst they may be rioters this year, even without riots they are likely to be creating trouble of some kind at any point in time. Theft, burglary, assault, etc.

Police Brutality

The riots started with what began as a peaceful protest into the shooting by police of someone called Mark Duggan. If there had not been a shooting, there probably would not have been a peaceful protest about the shooting. Which in turn would not have descended into rioting, which in turn would not have caused what we could call “copy-cat” riots elsewhere.

So in a sense the “police brutality” in shooting Mark Duggan did cause the rioting, but the later riots were not in support of Mark Duggan at all – they were simply acquisitive and destructive riots. It could have been any cause triggering them – a protest at the killing of anyone, a demonstration against student fees, protests against the globalisation culture, etc.

Whereas there may be a problem relating to the shooting of Mark Duggan, and we can regard that as the trigger for the later riots, in no way can the shooting be described as the cause of the riots.

Economy

This is my favourite underlying cause as I have made the point before.

In summary, the rioters are to some extent economically disadvantaged but that is not why they rioted. The poor (unless they are exceptionally so), can put up with their situation if they see there is hope of improvement. For the young, this means seeing opportunities for improvement – that they can get a job, can pursue self-improvement through education, etc. If they do not have hope, this leads to frustration with their situation exacerbated when they see others improving their lot.

Not all of the “hopeless” riot of course, so again there are other reasons as to why the rioters were made into rioters.

Parental Failure

This is of course the favourite excuse for the “family values” politicians … frequently coming up with this without checking any of the evidence. And they usually get a dig in at “failed” families too – single parent families.

Maybe it’s true that all of the rioters came from single parent families where the remaining parent has poor parenting skills. Although I have not seen any evidence of this … one or two examples that may have come to light do not make a trend. Even if it is poor parenting contributing to the riots, the answer to this problem is not going to be simple.

One of the most obvious answers is to provide “alternative” families … young people below a certain age (say 16) are always grouping together to form a pseudo-family of sorts whether they need one or not. If we’re worried about gangs and gang culture, we need to provide alternative groups for young people to join; if they are not joining the ones that already exist then there is something wrong with the ones that exist.

Gun Control

Probably one of the most bizarre and offbeat claims was that the UK’s gun control laws helped kick off the riots … which is patently ridiculous. After all the US (with somewhat more lax gun control than the UK) has had riots itself, and gun control didn’t seem to stop the looting then.

Besides which there is an assumption that the shopkeepers whose shops were looted were present and able to defend their property … if only they had had guns! Well it turns out that most shopkeepers were not present, and some shopkeepers did protect their property, and without the assistance of guns.

So the presence of someone prepared to face down the rioters, sometimes stops those rioters. Whether or not guns are available.

Where’s The Enquiry ?

One of the most bizarre reactions to the riots has been to pointedly refuse to hold a public inquiry into what is going on. No matter how “wise” someone is, they cannot know all of the answers to the riots. Or if they do, why were they not able to stop them in the first place ? I have fairly strong opinions as to why these riots started, but I would love for an inquiry to get to the bottom of the causes.

Apart from anything else, it would be a great opportunity to say “I told you so”.

But more importantly, it would be an opportunity to get to the root causes of the problems with evidence to those causes. The riots are a symptom of an underlying problem, or far more likely a number of underlying problems all combining into the riots. These underlying problems undoubtedly have other outcomes than the riots.

Fixing the underlying problems will not only make future riots less likely, but will also improve our society in other ways.

Pensions: Public Sector and Private Sector

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Jun 302011
 

Disclaimer: I am a public sector worker who can expect a public sector pension. This may reflect my views on the issue. It also reflects the views of others who write about this issue but do they declare their interest?

Today many of the public sector unions were on strike in protest at government proposals to “reform” public sector pensions. This caused quite a bit of disruption to people trying to use various public sector services – especially as many schools were closed. The government is of course condemning those who went on strike – how dare they inconvenience the public by going on strike when the discussions are not even complete.

Well the government “negotiators” have already put their foot in it by implying that many things are not subject to negotiation – if all you’re left with is to negotiate what the measures are to be called, then you’re not negotiating at all. Plus anyone watching the news would be mistaken for thinking that these pension reforms are all about making public sector pensions affordable.

What the government fails to point out is that measures taken in the past – including unilaterally (i.e. without negotiating) changing the index linking to a lower rate – have already made the public sector pensions affordable. According to the latest calculated figures, the cost of public sector pensions peaked in 2009-2010 at 1.9% of GDP which is expected to fall to 1.4% of GDP. This is according to this BBC article (I’ve been very lazy and have not hunted down the original report).

As one BBC commentator pointed out, these measures are aimed not at making public sector pensions affordable but at making public sector pensions fairer in comparison to private sector pensions. So the government is lying; no surprise there!

But it isn’t fair for a low-paid private sector worker to be paying taxes that contribute towards a more generous public sector salary for those lucky enough to hang on to their public sector job! To be more clear, the public sector scheme should should not be excessively generous in comparison to private sector schemes.

One thing to point out is that pension schemes usually work by the employee making a hefty contribution out of his or her monthly salary and their employer also making a contribution each month. That is no different in the public sector!

So what we have here is a government determined to bring down public sector pensions to the level in the private sector rather than tackle the admittedly harder problem of bringing up the level of private sector pensions. Or in other words we have a government working to keep the average worker poor so the rich can get richer.

Just what you would expect a Tory government to do.

Do The Tories Want To Privatise Universities ?

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May 102011
 

Today a Tory let slip that some in the Tory party may be thinking of letting Universities supplement their income by offering additional places over the current quota to UK students which would be charged at the same rate as non-EU students. Of course they very rapidly back-pedalled from this position, but was it a slip or something that the Tories are planning … in a year or five ?

First of all, a little background. UK Universities are free to charge non-EU students pretty much what they want to within the constraints of supply and demand – pretty much like a business. This can be pretty lucrative for many Universities, and there is a fairly active pursuit of foreign students.

There are benefits and disadvantages to this of course. Foreign students may not always have the best possible English language skills which can conceivably have a detrimental effect on teaching. However offering a limited number of places to foreign students does have advantages that counter this – first of all exposing “native” students to foreign students widens the experience of both groups, and recruiting foreign students adds to the possible pool of expertise to hire the best researchers from.

But allowing Universities to recruit UK students on the same fees as non-EU students ? Well it might sound ok – allow the Universities to recruit students from anywhere to supplement their quota of UK students, but it is an obviously slippery slope from that. Over time the Tories could slowly cut the student quota and leave UK students with eventually little choice other than to pay the “full price” with no support for their education.

Of course the Tories claim that there are no such plans, but do we believe them ?

David Cameron’s use of the “Calm Down Dear” Phrase

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Apr 282011
 

The funniest thing about David Cameron using the phrase “Calm down dear” in Prime Minister’s question time yesterday is that everyone seems to think there are just two possibilities – that he was being sexist, or he was trying to be funny. What everyone seems to have ignored was that he was being a complete idiot too.

Whether he was being sexist or being funny – and I’m on the side that thinks he was trying to be funny – he was being an idiot trying to use a phrase that could be interpreted as condescension to women (i.e. being sexist). Ok, perhaps everyone is allowed the occasional slip up – even the Prime Minister is human after all.

But if he keeps being idiotic, we need to worry – an idiotic Prime Minister is not a good thing!

The Alternative Voting System In The UK: Yes Or No ?

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Feb 232011
 

The referendum on whether we should go for the proposed Alternative Voting system or for the traditional first past the post system is coming up in May, and we are now beginning to see politicians spout all sorts of half-truths on the subject. The key thing to remember during the debates amongst politicians is that their views are slanted by self-interest – they unconsciously (or perhaps consciously) want the political system that gives the best results for themselves, rather than the system that best suits the voters.

So we have to rely on our own minds to decide which voting system is best for us, and not trust the politicians.

The traditional system was first formally put in place nationally in The Representation of The People Act 1832, although the first past the post system had been used in various constituencies for centuries before that. Given the contraints of a medieval country, it is quite a good system – simple to administer, easy to understand, and not especially unrepresentative of the population making up the electorate when the number of electors for each MP was vastly less than today.

Today is quite a different matter. The first past the post system means that everyone who did not vote for the elected MP feels disenfranchised, and those who hold differing views to the majority in a safe constituency are very much excluded from the political process. And it can be a very high proportion of the electorate – in one constituency in last year’s election, the MP who was elected had the support of just 37% of the voters.

So how does the Alternative Voting system work ?

Well each voter lists their candidates in order of preference – 1 for their favourite candidate, 2 for their next favourite candidate, etc. You can even list just 1 preference if you are a first past the post fan, or list every possible candidate in order of preference if you want. If nobody wins 50% of the votes, the candidate with the least number of votes is excluded and the next preference from those who voted for him or her are distributed amongst the remaining candidates; this process is repeated until a candidate does get more than 50%. Or presumably there is just one candidate left!

There have even been politicians who claim that the Alternative Voting system is too complex for the voter to understand. Ok, the distribution of votes may be a little tricky for those simpler voters, but ordering your preferred candidates is the important part – and simple enough for the overwhelming majority to understand. Frankly politicians who go around insulting voters should be voted out in the next election!

Is the Alternative Voting system fairer than the first past the vote system ? Well, a bit fairer. Very safe constituencies are likely to carry on being safe constituencies, and minority views are still likely to be under represented (if represented at all!) in Parliament. It certainly is not proportional representation, and doesn’t even come close.

But it does hold several key advantages over the first past the post system :-

  • Firstly, it allows people to vote with the real belief of what candidate should be elected without regard to the likelihood of victory. Those who hold minority views (say perhaps Green party supporters) always have a difficult decision to make under a first past the post system – do they vote for the party they want even though it has no hope of victory ? Or do they vote tactically to vote for the candidate they would dislike the least ? With AV, they get to do both.
  • Secondly it ensures a fairer result in a three-horse race between three candidates. As an example, in a traditionally Tory constituency, it is possible for Labour to slip in, if the Tory vote gets split between the Conservatives and the Liberals. Given the choice a Tory may well wish the Liberal candidate to win if the Tory candidate cannot. Any election system that can return an MP with a minority of the support is flawed.

There are those who do not like the Alternative Voting system because it does not go far enough. It is only a relatively minor improvement to the first past the post system, and there is some inclination to vote against it for that reason. Whilst understandable (and I’m in favour of going further too), it is not the right way to look at it. Whilst we can criticse politicians for not going far enough, or for not giving us a wider choice to choose from, the question to answer here is which voting system do you prefer ? First past the post, or AV ?

Given the choice, I would say that AV is a step in the right direction. It doesn’t go far enough, but we have not been given the choice of saying “something better please”.

So I would say “Yes” – let’s vote for something a little better than the status quo. You are free to make up your own mind, but be wary of listening too closely to the politicians!

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