New blog on the block

I have configured the new server - and it is located here. I have not managed to work out how to get dailypropaganda.co.uk to point to this computer yet, but it will (hopefully) only be a matter of days.

This blog will not have any more posts on it - but please don't update your bookmarks, as dailypropaganda.co.uk will (some day soon) point to the correct thing.

As a scientist

this article hits home. Apparently, of 11,000 children questioned, 40% said they didn't want to be a scientist "Because you would constantly be depressed and tired and not have time for family".

If they had added something about the miserly pay, the children would have got the bullet between the eyes.

Technical problems

In top 'plus.net' fashion, they are having technical difficulties with dailypropaganda.co.uk. I can't get the domain to point to my server, due to their lack of flexibility and incompetence, so I will transfer it away from them. Plus.net have to be the worst ISP in the world - from both a internet usage and domain hosting point of view. Once I transfer dailypropaganda.co.uk from them, I will be glad to never have to deal with them again.

Observations about Switzerland

The Swiss are incredibly patriotic. The shops have huge promotional displays of products with "Swiss Made" stamps on them. People buy "Swiss Made" products, even though foreign imports can often be cheaper and better quality.

Even Macdonalds feels it is necessary to tell everyone it purchases *everything* from Switzerland:










What a strange country. Oh... to be Swiss.

Fife

What is it about Fife - that oh-so-lovely(TM) county in the bowels of Scotland - that attracts leaderships contenders? After all, Brown is a Fifer and it seems Menzies Campbell has been pulling the daggers out of late. The 'support' Ming the Merciless gave Kennedy in December, stating "As long as Charles Kennedy remains leader of the Liberal Democrats he has my full support.", yet as little as three weeks later (with Christmas in the middle too), Kennedy quits. Was it daggers at dawn, Ming?

And how ironic that the three major UK parties could be led by Scots, or those with Scottish ancestry.

Back

Well I am back - it's been a fun ride, but my family and I are now safely installed in parts foreign, although we don't have internet access at home yet.

More later....

p.s I have filled out the form to join 'the party'.

Moving house

We are moving tomorrow, which explains the lack of posts on my blog. From tomorrow onwards, I doubt I will have internet access for a couple of weeks - maybe even three! I will be back, however.

The police state within the NHS

I am not allowed a copy of my medical records. They contain information only about me, yet I am not allowed them. I asked if I could pick them up because I am moving to another country, and I was told they are the "property of the Crown" and I could not take them away. I then asked if I could take a photocopy of them, and I was told I could only make a copy of a part of them (not the whole lot) only if my new doctor I makes a specific request. It's a bit like the Freedom of Information Act - you need to know what to ask before you can get the information.

Fife Council

I have just received a threatening letter from Fife's Council Tax Department, informing me that if I don't pay my account in full, I will be taken to court. I sent them a letter 6 weeks ago informing them I was moving home and I requested a final bill. I stopped payments as arranging a refund would be a nightmare when living in Switzerland. Their excuse for this lack of joined-up-thinking was twofold. Firstly, there was a backlog in their department that dealt with people moving home. Secondly, the department that deals with payments is different to the department that deals with house moving - they are autonomous, and it seems, unable to communicate with each other.

The end result? I will get three bills in the post. I will receive a bill for the whole year as if I was not moving, I will receive a bill for the period up to the 20th December and another from the 21st December to 20th January. The fist bill I have to ignore, the second bill I have to pay and the third bill is for my records. All of these will be sent to Switzerland, at considerable cost to the council (why they just couldn't sent me a final bill, as requested, is beyond me). The problem is, they insisted I paid them on the phone, there and then. So even though I am to 'ignore' the first bill and 'pay' the second bill, I have in fact paid the first bill and will have to claim back my money with the second. I still don't know what the 3rd bill is for.

Joined-up-thinking at its best. And you know what - it's my taxes that pay for it.

The CAP and rebate conundrum

There has been a lot of press and blog coverage of the CAP/UK rebate in the last few weeks. For my first big politics post in a while, I thought I would discuss some of the issues that seem to have been forgotten. I was in favor of keeping our rebate and the only way I would be happy for it to be given up is if France (and others) give up the gravy train known as the CAP. In fact, my preferred outcome was no CAP, no rebate and an overall EU budget divided by two.

But let's just look at the figures before making any rash decisions.

Agriculture accounts for a variable percentage oF EU GDP, depending on who you ask. The BBC claim agriculture accounts for 1.6% of GDP whereas the CIA claim it is 2.2%. I could not find a consensus, so let's assume it is 2% (1). European GDP is 9060bn Euros (2), so agriculture accounts for 182bn Euros. Critics of the CAP argue between 40 and 50% of the EU's budget is spent on it, corresponding to 49bn euros (3). Now that is a *lot* of subsidy going into agriculture considering its constribution to GDP. On the other hand, if you take a look at the social security budget of Germany - one country within the EU - dwarfs the 49bn spent on CAP! There are arguments for and against the CAP and I was swayed by those against, but now I sincerely doubt the answer lies with these macroeconomic figures. One must look at the human cost, too.


There were 12,218,600 family members(4) and 6,352,690 full time employees (5) working on 6,770,690 farms (6). With just over 2600 euros going to each and every farm worker (or alternatively over 7700 euros to each farm), it would make a big dent in their pockets if the CAP was scrapped. The average income (7) for a farm in Germany is 33,600 euros, so stopping the CAP would be the same as reducing the farm's income by 22%. Would it be worth being a farmer in Germany? I would say not. Removing the CAP subsidies would decimate the landscape of Germany (8), and I would wager the rest of Europe too. Farming would be unsustainable.

We all remember what happened to those UK areas dependent on mining in the 80's and I for one would not welcome such drastic changes again. Although I think the state subsidy of the UK coal industry was wrong, I also believe that the way Margarate Thatcher went about changing the subsidies system, by having 20 uneconomical coalmine closures announced (20,000 jobs) which led to a yaer of strikes, was disastrous.

I have changed my mind. For me, the best outcome of Tony Bliars presidency of the EU is a stalemate. I don't know what the solution is, but at least in the short term, it can't be abolishing the CAP.




Notes:
(1) The BBC numbers are for 2005, CIA for 2004. It is highly unlikely there would be a decrease in agricultural GDP of 0.6% in 1 year - that corresponds to 50bn euros. We would know about that level of reduction!! More likely is that the calculations to estimate GDP are based on different methodologies.
(2) Figures for 2000 and 15 member states.
(3) Figures for 2005
(4) Of working age in 2000.
(5) Sum of all employees, including part time employees in 2000: e.g. two part time employees working 50% each have been summed up to make one full time employee.
(6) In 2000. The smallest 1% of farms were not surveyed.
(7) Figures for 2003/4. It seems a lot, but considering that there are on average two family members and one employee for each farm, that's 10,000 euroes each - about £7000!
(8) In Germany, 54% of the land mass is used for agriculture.