The original story:
“Disadvantaged children failed by British system, warns OECD”
Strapline: Britain’s education and welfare system is failing disadvantaged children despite high levels of public funding, the OECD has warned.
The Daily Telegraph
1 September 2009

Summary of the story:
The papers – including the sensible Telegraph – have got excited by some OECD research (probably not much more than a look through existing data) which purports to show that the UK is failing the younger end of its young, and the poorer end of the younger end.

Here’s the work the papers are referring to: www.oecd.org/els/social/childwellbeing

livingissues comment:
I’ll look at the work in greater detail soon, but even a cursory glance suggests that the UK is an ordinary mid-range big European country in most ways. Our young have a pretty good school experience and are pretty safe. But they are bit hooliganish (they get drunk and have babies a bit more commonly than other rich nation kids). Most other countries seem to fail their young in more ways than we do ours. I think that’s the conclusion one comes to when looking at Table 2.1 (here: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/19/4/43570328.pdf).

Of course, we don’t do as well by our children as the Scandinavians. But we compare pretty well with the French and Germans. We do better than the Italians and Greeks, who famously love their children.

The original story:
“Happiness Schmappiness”
David Aaronovitch
The Times
11 August 2009

Summary of the story:
David Aaronovitch has been an important contributor to the Happiness Debate. In this piece he attacks a much-cited piece of work which purported to show that British children were unhappy. He does so on his familiar territories. He says the “data” employed is deployed to produce the result the researchers demand. (The UK the “worst” in the league table of countries.) He implies that the researchers are dishonest in not challenging their own findings. (They happily cite the bits of data which go with their flow, but they don’t tell us where glaring gaps in their knowledge lie.) 

livingissues comment:
It is very useful to have Mr Aaronovitch’s detailed debunking of a piece of “happiness” research, not only because it’s an important debate about well-being but also because the reading public need to know how to interrogate this kind of material in whatever debate it’s employed.

The original story:
“Women less happy….”
Richard Woods
The Sunday Times
31 May 2009

Summary of the story:
This is a very readable account of “female misery” but it is wider ranging on happiness.

livingissues comment:
Almost incidentally this piece usefully notes that (contrary to several modern myths) people are not working longer than they used to, or spending less times with their children, or experiencing more misery. The difficulty is that women do not seem to be experiencing the same increases in well-being that men are.

The original story:
“Making Allowances”
Leader Comment
The Times
9 May 2009

Summary of the story:
The Times‘s leader writer ran the gamut of argument on the problem of finding the right people to go into politics, especially how to reward them properly.

livingissues comment:
The nation has been indulging in an orgy of dislike of Members of Parliament and their allowances. Interestingly, The Telegraph is not universally admired for its expose. It was seen in some quarters as a witch hunt which risked taking our eye of the real issues. As The Times remarks, the upshot is probably that the MPs’ “take” is quite small and not very corrupting.

MPs will have to rethink how they pay themselves.

Actually, though, the public has more rethinking to do than the politicians. We have been so busy wanting everybody in authority to be responsive to the point of submissiveness that we haven’t noticed that we want to be informed and led by an elite.

We won’t be led by serious and worthwhile people until we signal that we admire public service. (Nick Stacey told A N Wilson (FT, 9/10 May 2009) how badly we were lacking this sense.) Of course, public servants have to be well-rewarded. But they’ll need respect too.

The failing is partly in the leadership cadres. For all the humbug and arrogance that has always littered the elite – the professional classes – there was also a more widespread understanding of the idea of vocation. Helena Kennedy made something like that point on BBC2′s Newsnight (11 May 2009).

We need to build a new sense of professionalism and the vocational pleasures it can bring.

So it’s a reciprocal matter. The led need to understand their obligation to their leaders and the leaders need to have quite a strong sense of their duty.

This sort of ethos was once quite openly discussed and taught. It wasn’t the preserve of the public school, though public schools certainly took it very seriousy and still do (as the headmistress of Roedean reminded the FT (9 May 2009). Actually, it ran right through society as a value and was taught at every point. It was, for instance, accepted that adults had a leadership role, and it didn’t really matter how poor or uneducated they were.

The original story:
“Africa needs missionaries”
Matthew Parris
The Times
27 December 2008

Summary of the stories:
Matthew Parris has been re-visiting the Africa of his youth. To his surprise and even consternation (he being an atheist) he finds himself believing that Africans do better if they believe in a Christian god. Nothing else, he thinks, so readily overcomes superstition. What’s more, Christianity matters because it respects individuals rather than groups or tribes.

livingissues comment:
This is an interesting line of argument for several reasons.

(1) It overcomes a basic judgement (a prejudice if you like) that nothing good that was European or Western or white ever went to Africa.

(2) It reinforces a judgement (a prejudice if you like) that Africa needs a transformation of culture even more than it needs hardware. What’s more the change that’s needed is in personal attitiudes.

(3) It reminds modern people that Christianity is a religion of personal liberation and as such was the surprising underpinning of the renaissance and even the Enlightenment.

(4) Parris doesn’t stress, but it’s worth adding, that Africa has been slow to develop a middle class. One could argue that the bossy, assertive people who built modern Western civilisation were mostly not very powerful and not always rich either. They built societies rather than became “Big Men”. Africa needs their sort and their kind of thinking. Christianity may well be the African route to creating such people.

The original stories:
When did bullying become acceptable?

Terence Blacker

The Independent

29 October 2008

Summary of the stories:

Terence Blacker reached for a larger point behind the Brand/Ross fiasco. Cruetly, he notes, has been outlawed nearly everywhere except the media, where it is the new guarantor of success.

livingissues comment:

The BBC has a horror of not being popular. Bad taste is in. But the BBC isn’t awfully good at expensive bad taste (X Factor’s early rounds, Big Brother throughout). So it tries to be more creatively edgy, and with some success (Have I got News For You).

In this race to the edge, it will sometimes fall over. Thus the latest fiasco.

As Blakcer says, the irony is that the mass culture is simultaneously outlawing saying boo to any gooses on, say, the playground whilst monstering celebrities on air and in print all the time.

That’s weird. But we should not be surprised that Brand and Ross are motor-mouths: they’re paid to be so.

Arguably, we should not be surprised that the BBC quite oten crosses the line. It is run be very hard headed pragmatists who believe that getting attention matters more than almost everything else.

It is not likely that any BBC executives have made a bad career move in giving Brand and Ross too much freedom. Such producers will thrive in or out of the BBC, and even after the BBC, and even if they help destroy it. And they may have helped ensure its survival.

The original stories:
Top rate tax may not raise a penny
Hamish McRae
The Independent
26 November 2008

How ‘Reaganomics’ tax cuts can raise revenue
 Janet Daley
The Daily Telegraph
25 November 2008

Summary of the stories:
Two writers respond to the Labour Government’s reversal of its 10-year policy of not treating the very rich differently from ordinarily well-off middle class taxpayers. Hamish McRae reminds us that there seems to be a “tipping point” with tax. Push the overal tax of an individual over about 60 per cent and the operation is counter-productive. The very rich (the top one percent) already pay a quarter of the nation’s tax take. But they are flexible types: “over-tax” them, and they have all kinds of ways of fighting back. 

Janet Daley reminds us of the other part of the equation. It’s called the “Laffer Curve“. The rich don’t like being over-taxed and part of their defensive reaction may lead to a decline in national income, sometimes beginning with their own (as they decide to retire sooner than stump up, say). That’s bad in itself and leads to lower tax revenues. (JD notes that some circumstances can change these assumptions.)

livingissues comment:
There may be all kinds of merits in left-of-centre political policy. But the left are not always right when they say that society can be made to be more “fair”. Sure, it may well be possible to take money from the well-off and direct it to the poor and everybody benefit one way or another. But it turns out that in relatively free societies, you can only take so much tax from the well-off. After a certain point, it’s counterproductive.

But one had better not be simplistic. Some high-taxation economies do pretty well and some low-taxation economies are very nasty. Economies differ in their responses to changing tax rates. 

The original stories:
When did bullying become acceptable?
Terence Blacker
The Independent
29 October 2008

Summary of the stories:
Terence Blacker reached for a larger point behind the Brand/Ross fiasco. Cruelty, he notes, has been outlawed nearly everywhere except the media, where it is the new guarantor of success.

livingissues comment:
The BBC has a horror of not being popular. Bad taste is in. But the BBC isn’t awfully good at expensive bad taste (X Factor’s early rounds, Big Brother throughout). So it tries to be more cheaply and creatively edgy, and with some success (Have I got News For You).

In this race to the edge, it will sometimes fall over. Thus the latest fiasco.

As Blacker says, the irony is that the mass culture is simultaneously outlawing saying boo to any gooses on, say, the playground whilst monstering celebrities on air and in print all the time.

That’s weird. But we should not be surprised that Brand and Ross are motor-mouths: they’re paid to be so.

Arguably, we should not be surprised that the BBC quite often crosses the line. It is run by very hard headed pragmatists who believe that getting attention matters more than almost everything else.

It is not likely that any BBC executives have made a bad career move in giving Brand and Ross too much freedom. Such producers will thrive in or out of the BBC, and even after the BBC, and even if they help destroy it. And they may have helped ensure its survival.

The original stories:
Statism and laisser faire: the new transatlantic trade
by John Thornhill
The Financial Times
25/26 October 2008

Summary of the stories:
Mr Thornhill argues rather elegantly that sensible Europeans don’t really believe some of their own anti-capitalist rhetoric. Their economies still mostly need to become more lean and competitive. More capitalistic, in short. That’s how they’ll weather the storm. But the US will find itself developing regulations which look quite European.

In short, he says, “Both sides can learn some sanity from each other.”

livingissues comment:
The important point here is that capitalism is far from dead, and the state’s not suddenly going to run, make and provide everything. Right now, over-regulation is almost as much a danger as the mis-regulation which got us to this point. But the state will get more involved, because it can’t afford to let capitalists fail too often.

Indeed, this episode will remind us that capitalism is deeply fallible, amoral, unruly, and as prone to panic as it is to exuberance. It is also sociable, a product of freedom, vigorous, creative. But not cosy – never that. It is also various. It differs from place to place, according to custom and practice. Even within countries, it has many faces. It can harbour institutions which are quite boring and pretty safe, and others which are hair-raisingly unstable. All this will become more obvious as time goes by.

The original stories:
Easily caught in a web of sinister untruths
 David Aaronovitch
The Times
16 September 2008

Warning sounded on web’s future
BBC Online
Pallab Ghosh

Summary of the stories:
The internet needs a way to help people separate rumour from truthful material and real science, says Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the World Wide Web. He is increasingly worried about the way the Web has been used to spread disinformation. In response he has helped form a World Wide Web Foundation to address the problem and to help improve the Web’s accessibility.

livingissues comment:
These stories are important. The web does favour mob opinion over fact, evidence and objectivity. A classic example is the recent panic about CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Big Bang experiment producing an earth-swallowing black hole.

But we should remember there’s nothing new about panics and scares. And bigotry is not unique to our century. Web 2.0 merely transmits them faster. It simplifies the process and lowers the cost. Besides, Web 2.0 innovations such as wikis, Twitter, blogs, video posts and the like, equally facilitate – on a gigantic scale – the distribution of evidence, reason and co-operation. 

The question is how do we help users – now accounting for 20% of the world’s population – spot what’s trustworthy content and what’s not?