General

The Potency of Left Field ideas

Published on by Nick Wilkins

Baroness Jones caused quite a stir when, in reaction to the appalling murder of Sarah Everard, she proposed a curfew on men going out after 6pm.

Chair of the Women’s Equality Committee, Caroline Nokes called it “a bonkers suggestion”[1] whilst Nigel Farage tweeted it was an example of the left being “deranged”[2]

Jones’s suggestion came in the context of advice to women from south London police “not go out alone”[3].  That so few detected any irony in her proposal reflects how few sadly saw the police’s advice as “a bonkers suggestion”, as well as revealing the predisposition of many to expect politicians of the left to advance “deranged” ideas.

And that was both the point and the power of Jones’s idea.  Being ironic doesn’t mean you are only joking.  There’s a logic in her proposal that holds up.  If women out on their own are in danger from men then it surely follows that men’s liberties should be curtailed, not women’s?  Ah, but not all men are to blame.  That’s true, but all women suffer the consequences and the police advice (and hands up who amongst us mightn’t have called it “sensible”) was to all women.

We’ve all experienced it from our schooldays and look back with a groan.  Someone drew a fat penis on the white board, nobody’s owned up and the whole of the class is held in detention.  But did you ever hear of a case where the class down the corridor were punished instead, even though it was known the culprit was not among them?

So why am I writing about this here?  Because left field ideas have the power to release us from our intellectual shackles.  To ask questions of ourselves, to challenge our prejudices and assumptions.  We need to do better than just cast them off as “bonkers”.  Otherwise we’ll carry on doing things, believing things, just because we always have.

However much we want to protect our ecosystems, you could never completely overhaul the tax system – that would be bonkers.  Like Jones’s idea, or imagining the earth a sphere that orbits the sun.

[1] https://theconversation.com/baroness-jones-why-did-so-many-people-take-her-6pm-curfew-for-men-proposal-at-face-value-157183

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/13/men-curfew-sarah-everard-women-adapt-violence

[3] https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/peer-jenny-jones-calls-for-6pm-curfew-for-men/

What we value

Published on by Nick Wilkins

Back in December this blog issued two warnings about borrowing to finance the Covid support measures:

  1. That deferring tax raises until the point of return risked a sluggish recovery
  2. The “we can’t afford pay rises” narrative was likely to be trotted out again as an excuse for further austerity.

Arguably, last week’s budget partly recognised the former as a concern for there were few significant tax rises announced apart from the proposed Corporation Tax rise, and even that was deferred.

Nurse

However, NHS workers have been told they are to receive a paltry 1% rise, almost certainly representing a wage cut in real terms once inflation is taken into account.  And the reason for this lack of generosity?  You’ve guessed it: “We can’t afford it.”

There’s been a lot of debate in the media about this, but the question that seems to have been missing was to ask how much it was that we supposedly couldn’t afford?

So, I got out my fag packet and tried scribbling out a few sums:-

According to the government’s website there were 1,164,729 NHS workers last December of which 299,184 were nurses[1].  Payscale puts the average wage of an NHS employee at ₤26,974[2], so multiplying 1% of this by the total number of NHS workers gets you to about £314 million.  That would mean a 5% rise takes you to about £1.59 billion.  Now I know that there are pension costs and other benefits to add (I’m not including employers NI because that goes to the government) and that the cost of any increase is year-on-year, but…

The cost of the stamp duty holiday to date is estimated at £3.8 billion[3].  This has now been extended in full to June and in part to September, plus the chancellor has announced help for people to get 95% mortgages.  In comparison, the Royal College of Nursing’s 12.5% claim, widely condemned as unrealistic, would have first year costs (based on an average salary of £33,384[4]) of less than £1.25Bn.

One can’t help thinking that it’s more important to this government to shore up house prices than it is to address the structural inequalities in our system of rewards so starkly exposed during this pandemic.  And with average house prices set to rise by £10,000 this year[5], how can this subsidy be justified?  This is a double-whammy for health workers trying to buy their first homes.

“Levelling up” needs to amount to more than just throwing some sweeties around in red wall constituencies.  Many nurses and care workers have risked their lives and long-term health to help save those of others and are suffering from physical and mental exhaustion.  They won’t be the only ones with deep scars following this pandemic, but if a city worker performs heroically during a year they will usually be rewarded appropriately.  This is what needs levelling up.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/record-numbers-of-doctors-and-nurses-working-in-the-nhs

[2] https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Employer=The_National_Health_Service_(NHS)/Salary

[3] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2020-0082/

[4] https://www.nurses.co.uk/nursing/blog/a-quick-overview-of-nurses–salaries-in-the-uk-in-2021/#average

[5] https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-9338495/What-happen-house-prices-2021-Savills-predicts-4-growth.html

Campaign launch

Published on by Nick Wilkins

We are now inviting all interested parties to contribute to this campaign with your impressions and comments.
We would be delighted to hear from anyone who would like to work with us to put some more flesh on these proposals.

I see the process going something like this:-

1) Sanity check the basic ideas by seeking feedback from a largely invited audience
2) Further research, fact-finding and modelling with the aim of publishing a more substantial publication
3) Publicity efforts, events, outreach to sympathetic organisations
4) Lobbying of politicians in any country where we feel there may be traction

I’d expect the campaign to be a broad church with as many variants as there are minds contributing, and this will be reflected in the published literature that this web site will host. However, I will reserve the right of editorial control over the “authorised” version of these proposals, so that original intentions are not lost or unduly watered-down.

Please do fill in the contact form if you’d like to be part of this process or simply kept informed on how we are getting on.

Nick

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