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Lord Young's remark that most Britons 'had never had it so good' received a great deal of criticism last week and saw him resign from his role as a government advisor. Given the current economic circumstances and the depth of the Coalition's cuts even David Cameron called the comment 'insensitive and inaccurate'. Insensitive, yes, but inaccurate? 

Rolling news has a habit of picking up on these gaffes, cranking up the hyperbole and making more of them than is really necessary. "Tory makes insensitive remark about the the poor shocker!" "Cameron makes a dig at a man for being short!" It is not really news, is it? The problem with this sort of reporting is that it may fill airtime but it also generates a slightly fraught atmosphere. It betrays a tendency to play to the mob. 

The trouble with Young's remark is that from a historical perspective it may be true. Like a Don in Tom Sharpe's 'Porterhouse College' - historians (sorry real historians who read this) tend to find that 'current economic circumstances only last ten years or so'. From this perspective, even making allowances for the mirage of wealth during the highly inflated house-price boom - most of us really have never had it so good. Now calm down and let me explain. During my lifetime we have seen our country transformed. The grey, conservative world of my childhood has disappeared. Never again will tinned mushrooms be regarded as a rather sophisticated addition to a meal or orange juice be seen an acceptable starter in a restaurant. 

Our society has been transformed. A huge proportion of lives have been changed for the better. Sexual equality, racial equality, gay rights, a huge increase in the standard of living for the vast majority and, of course, the advent of 52 inch plasma TVs. As this blog testifies, I think there are still huge problems but the advent of the minimum wage, statutory housing responsibilities, free pre-school education demonstrates how successive governments have attempted to address the barriers to social inclusion to varying degrees. Yes, it's a work in progress but please don't get caught up in a sentimental vision of Britain. Have you read any of David Peace's novels?

Please don't take away my TV

Yet the sting in the tale is that despite all the improvements we are more unhappy than ever. In the highly respected Legatum Prosperity Index, which annually measures well-being across a range of eight indicators from economic to social cohesion, the UK came 13th but 20th in terms of life satisfaction. Compared to most 'developed' countries: we are more scared of crime, work longer hours, have an older retirement age and despite a very high level of political stability, a very low regard for our politicians. One of the saddest statistics was that only 35% of the population believed they could trust other people. In the top country, Norway, 74.2% felt they could trust others and even the USA beat us.

Since 1990 Richard Layard, now Baron Layard, has been promoting an alternative view of economics in his role as Programme Director at the Centre for Economic Performance at the LSE. Layard's work has become known as 'Happiness economics'. Briefly, he argues that relative rather than absolute income is the best indicator of happiness. People compare themselves to their peers and judge their 'happiness' accordingly. Increased purchasing power may make us unhappier if our position compared to others is worse. This effect may nullify any positive effects of economic growth and simply drive people to work harder in order to bridge the relative wealth gap. He calls this the rat race effect.

Richard layard

This research, however may seem like a debate that can only relate to the few very rich developed countries. It is no accident that the happiest countries are some of the wealthiest. At he very least it would be simplistic not to recognise that there is a minimum level of income that allows people to stop subsisting and instead start living. However, even leading free-market organisations have begun to advocate 'sharing the wealth'.

Layard's conclusions are supported by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Their 2010 report demonstrates the happiest countries also have the least inequality in income between rich and poor. Meanwhile the significantly less satisfied Brits and Yanks have a much great divergence in wealth. The OECD also concludes that in order to maximise worldwide economic growth, policy-makers should address levels of income inequality. Economic growth is not enough. It is a win-win situation because they note, as an aside, that there may also be a 'poverty reduction dividend' attached to these measures.

David Cameron's announcement that the Coalition will spend £2 million in an attempt to measure our  happiness has been met with derision. The rolling news juggernaut has got to work already and the mob are at the gates. Let's hope he has the political courage to see this through. I think he may be onto something. Despite the 'historical' trend of growing wealth we are less happy. Making 'happiness' rather than purely economic growth the goal would could have a profound effect on the assumptions of our policy-makers. It's an exciting thought.

Pure economic interests might drive a foreign policy that lands us in Iraq, but would a policy based on broader outcomes like social cohesion do the same? We are constantly warned that our top bankers will flee to other countries if the government dares to regulate their activities. Well, according to the OECD, it is in virtually everybody's self-interest to let them go.

To think that Ken Dodd was right all along...

"To me this old world is a wonderful place
And I'm just about the luckiest human in the whole human race
I've got no silver and I've got no gold
Just a whole lot of happiness in my soul"




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Anyone for dessert?

Like most revolutionaries I am a big fan of 'Just a minute' and 'Test match Special'. But are my guilty bourgeois pleasures under threat? Enjoy guest

 blogger 'Mr X' and his view from inside the BBC... 

An old BBC hack once advised that the Corporation should be thought of as a large jelly, the type one sees on documentary television during a demonstration of what Edward VII thought acceptable for his elevenses. A large, ornate, establishment jelly. The learned hack continued to explain that every so often someone comes along with a new-fangled idea and gives the jelly a really good shake. The jelly then wobbles vigorously on its moorings; the odd goblet may fly off in an unexpected direction, but, after some time has passed, the wobbling subsides, life carries on and one is left with a jelly virtually unchanged.

The hack in question is long dead, but I wonder how he would view the very significant wobbles at the BBC of recent years?

We’ve been shocked by Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross and Carol Thatcher. Miriam O'Reilly is taking action after being dropped from Countryfile and the NUJ have been on strike over pensions. But perhaps the most astonishing, and seemingly little noticed event of recent weeks is the TV licence fee settlement. Frozen for the next six years at £145.50 the licence fee will now also fund the BBC World Service and BBC Monitoring (both previously funded through direct taxation), whilst contributing more to Welsh language TV group S4C. So in practical terms what is the upshot of this deal? A 16% budget cut in real terms for Auntie and a £340m saving for the Exchequer over six years.

A little further analysis indicates that some very big changes are on the way. The BBC has been selling bits of its self for years, a privatisation of publicly owned assets worth over £1billion that has also gone largely unnoticed. Obviously all those bits and pieces that have been sold off did actually serve a purpose. The BBC does need to have access to some transmitters; it does need some computers, people to run studios, outside broadcast trucks, satellite dishes, buildings, security guards and cleaners. To this end the BBC has entered into various long term, fixed cost, service contracts that tie up over 30% of the BBC’s expenditure for years to come. Suddenly a 16% cut in income becomes a 23% cut as all the savings must be made from only 70% of expenditure.

Apart from cutting the website expenditure even further – welcomed almost universally – the current settlement probably means the end of one or more domestic service and the BBC World Service ceasing to be anything more than a brand with the consequent loss of several thousand jobs. The big bad Tory chancellor jumped the Director General, Mark Thompson and somehow left him feeling relieved that he didn’t have to fund TV licences for the over 75s or have his income top-sliced for C4.

Greg Dyke resigns over Kelly Affair

But why were the Tories so bold and the BBC so timid? The answer to this question lies back in the heady days of 2003 under Tony Blair’s administration - namely the Hutton Enquiry. In fact almost all the ills that have befallen the BBC in past years stem from that deeply flawed analysis of the BBC’s role in the death of David Kelly and the ensuing hours of madness that afflicted the then Board of Governors. The sudden decapitation of Chairman and DG has so traumatised the BBC management that they have lost all confidence to take the right decisions. Like an out of form batsman they have the knack of playing at all the wrong balls and, to mix my metaphors the poor old jelly just keeps on wobbling.

Spot the difference?

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 10

 

The Coaition has announced that it will cap the number of non-EU skilled migrants allowed in the UK 43,000. It represents a cut of 13% from the 2009 figures. The announcement is the start of a process by which the government aims to reduce overall immigration from hundreds to tens of thousands.

The target is yet another compromise between the Lib Dems and Tories, by which I mean the Lib Dems have compromised themselves entirely. In their 2010 manifesto he Conservatives promised an annual limit on immigration, new curbs on unskilled workers, and “transitional controls” on new European Union members. The Lib Dems policies were aimed at beefing up our border controls and they promised to 'introduce a regional points based system to ensure that migrants can work only where they are needed.' I'm not sure how they intended to police that one.

Back in those youthful Spring days, Clegg criticised the Tory proposals for ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the country's immigration comes from the EU and we have no right to stop that. He was correct. The current measure will contribute only 20% to the government's target. The other 80% will have to come from student and family migration which in 2009 stood at nearly 600,000.

A report in early November by the Commons home affairs select committee says the proposed annual cap on immigration "will make little difference to overall immigration and may do serious damage to Britain's knowledge economy." In the Guardian, Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs committee, said: "The government should direct its efforts to tackling those who abuse the system – bogus colleges and visa over stayers – rather than penalising legitimate students."

The committee also quoted evidence from eight Nobel prizewinning scientists of the potential damage to Britain's science base. They told the MPs that it was "a sad reflection on national priorities that the cap would exempt international footballers but not elite scientists or engineers."

Tim Finch, of the Institute of Public Policy Research, said the report blew huge holes in the idea of an annual cap: "The cap is a policy constructed to win an election, not to run an efficient immigration system."

Literacy and the HIV Crisis

"If you want to stop HIV spreading in Africa - stop teaching the people to read." That is the startling conclusion from Professor Grabaheadline at the University of Bathavonton. The controversial announcement follows Pope Benedict XVI decision to break with tradition and speak some sense about the use of contraception.  The Pope's comments were made in a series of interviews given to a German journalist, Peter Seewald, for a forthcoming book 'Light of the World: The Pope, The Church and the Signs of the Times.' 

Pope Benedict was asked whether the Catholic Church was not opposed in principle to the use of condoms. The Pope said that in the case of a male prostitute using a condom to reduce the risk of HIV infection could be the first step in the "direction of moralisation, a first assumption of responsibility...". He continued that the Church "does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality."

The Damascan conversion follows Pope Benedict's statement during his visit to Cameroon last year when he said the use of condoms could endanger public health and increase the problem of HIV/Aids rather than help to contain the virus. The comment confirmed the Church's traditional teaching on contraception which states that Catholics should only use 'natural' birth control by which it means only having sex during the infertile period of a woman's monthly cycle. Artificial methods of contraception are banned. 

The comment attracted a lot of criticism, particularly in Europe and rightly so. The statistics are shocking. According to the World Health Organisation there are over 34 million people infected with HIV worldwide with 23 million of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. This represents an astonishing 5.5% of the Sub-Saharan population and the epidemic is causing 1.4 million deaths a year in that region.

I should come clean and admit I am a member of probably the largest Church in Western Europe, the 'lapsed' Catholics. However, once in, never out' and over the last few months I have repeatedly found myself in the unusual position of defending the Church. Like everyone I have been truly appalled by the stories that have emerged about child abuse and the astonishing cover-ups. There is much to criticise and the recent scandals have rightly discredited Catholic clergy and institutions. However, it seems that to many commentators the Catholic Church is enemy number one.

This step towards a more humane teaching on the subject of contraception, no matter how small, should be applauded. There is no doubt that the refusal to accept condom use threatens people's lives, but that is not the whole picture. Africans are not dying simply because of Catholic teaching. Of the eight largest (%) Catholic populations in sub-Saharan Africa five have HIV infection rates well-below the average. Two, Lesotho and Swaziland have extremely high rates of infection and Uganda, is just above average. The picture on the ground is different to the 'official' teaching.

In the USA an estimated 95% of practising Catholics have used contraception. Individuals find a way to reconcile the practical aspects of life and faith. Why should African Catholics be different? It is slightly patronising to suggest that they would be more in thrall to the Church than the 'sophisticated' western Catholics. In fact the evidence suggests that countries that have embraced education programs teaching the Catholic emphasis to late start of sexual activity, abstention and faithfulness in relationships have seen a dramatic fall in the rate of new cases.

Giuseppe Caramazza, a Catholic Missionary commented to the Guardian in 2009, "I spent 17 years in Kenya as a missionary for the Catholic church. The condom might work in Europe; perhaps it does in Latin America. It certainly does not in Africa. Those countries that have chosen to popularise use of the condom – like many nations in southern Africa – are now fast changing policies." Countries such as Lesotho and Swaziland.


The point is that it is far too easy to blame the Church. The situation is much more complicated than Catholic teaching about condoms. Poverty? Clearly that has a role, but of the eight worst affected countries only four are in the lowest quartile for poverty and Botswana and South Africa are above many European countries. Ironically, the most consistent link to high HIV infection seemed to occur with high literacy rates. Seven of the countries with the highest infection rates also have the highest literacy rates. With an average literacy rate of 58% across sub-Saharan Africa, all except Malawi (58%) have substantially higher rates; between 71% in Zambia (infection rate of 14.3%) to 87% in Zimbabwe (infection rate 18.1).


Should we condemn the Catholic Church for teaching people to read?

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