theguardianlive event on NHS future - mixed reviews

In summary:  nice try, Guardian, but over-ambitious with establishment platform and a chair who was not strong enough.  A lot of aspirational statements, quite a bit of politics, and precious little on WHAT should be done and most importantly HOW to do it.  Flawed yet stimulating, ultimately frustrating. Nothing new that was significant.

The event was organised by The Guardian as part of their GuardianLive series was on 20 Jan 2015 in Conway Hall, London.

It must have been a sell-out (£15 a seat) as the hall was stuffed - the audience predominantly white, middle-class from what I could see, yet not over-polite ... there was some shouting as people lost patience with the proceedings.

Meeting Organisation
The Guardian was over-ambitious in expecting everyone to load a special app on smartphones and participate in polls and enter questions and rate questions online during the meeting.  There were 6 or 7 poll questions, yet only one was briefly examined. Many questions were entered yet only the top 2 were addressed as one item together.  The app on my android phone did not have all the functionality compared to the iphone of my neighbour.  A number of people objected that they were disenfranchised by not having smartphones or not being willing to load the app. The chair allowed a show of hands on the one poll examined, to placate the crowd. I personally find it hard to vote online and type questions when listening intently to speakers.  
Lesson Learned: do less and do it well, anticipating people's reaction to the use of technology.  The polls could have been available before the meeting started, and a separate screen used to display the results continuously - that would have been valuable rather than distracting.

Meeting Management
It will always be frustrating when 2 days worth of debate is crammed into less than 2 hours, however the chair (Denis Campbell, Guardian health Correspondent) was not strong enough.  He allowed the panel to give long answers, sometimes off the point of the question, and when the audience lost patience and started shouting comments he looked briefly like a rabbit in the headlights.  He also took up time asking his own questions when the audience was gagging to ask theirs. he only took audience questions with 15 minutes left of the meeting time.
Lesson Learned: the chair of course needs to be knowledgeable in the field, but also independent from the debate - Denis had too much 'skin in the game' to be able to sit back and manage the debate to best effect.  Short answers must be enforced.  Get the audience involved early.

Debate Panel
Here are my key notes against the main panel members - 3 establishment figures and 1 very well-connected thinktank CEO - harsh perhaps but this is what stayed with me:

Dr Mark Porter (BMA) - stop the use of markets, it has failed - no more re-organisations

Sir Bruce Keogh (NHS England) - prevention is better than cure (otherwise I heard political aspirational statements)

Rt Hon Norman Lamb MP (LibDem Minister of State for Care and Support at the Department of Health) - next 5 years is crunch time - want to pool health and social care by area, give control to that area

Julia Manning (CEO 2020health thinktank) - we cannot do everything, technology costs too much (gets my vote as 'most insightful of the evening', which does not say much for the others)

Lesson Learned:  the audience around me felt rather 'talked down to' by the great-and-good panel, influential and eloquent though they are.  I think the audience would have preferred to have one or two NHS practitioners from the front line on equal footing up on the platform.  All the staff are 'amazing' and engagement is the thing, so let's have them up there alongside the top brass.

Content
I heard some figures that are surprising on the face of it:  NHS is one sixth of national public expenditure, yet UK (or was that England) spends less than the average across Europe (per head, or as %age of what was not stated), and we only spend half what USA spends (ah but you cannot compare tax-funded free at point of delivery with an insurance based system surely?!).

The two top-rated audience questions (and the only ones taken by the panel) were about privatisation.  The audience is dead against it.  Julia Manning pointed out that it is not a simple black & white issue - she as an optician was self-employed and contracted to the NHS.  Much IT provision is out-sourced. These are rather different to a private equity owner dumping a non-profitable secondary care facility.

The audience wanted to talk about TTIP - they were rabidly against it.  The panel, specifically Norman Lamb, asked them to be sure of their facts and reassured them that the EU had written to our government confirming that the NHS is not affected by TTIP.

The Health and Social Care Act came in for much general stick - I didn't hear anyone specifically defending it.  Norman Lamb pointed out that the PFI schemes are effectively just mortgages with huge repayments by government to private sector - that's an interesting perspective, and my respect for this MP is growing.

No one, apart from Julia Manning in passing, addressed what I see as the elephant in the room:  we should be talking about the next 5 years as tactical - the strategy should be the next 25 years;  the current and predicted growth in NHS funding is simply not sustainable - economic growth will not magically solve the problem (that's not sustainable either); therefore we need a really radical review and prioritisation of health and care services across the board, with some serious expectation management; no government is ever going to do that because it's political suicide; so we need a beefed-up equivalent of the Office for Budget Responsibility for the NHS, to provide the logical advice and take the blame for the (correct) difficult decisions.

Ok, I have finished on an off-the-wall suggestion, and the above notes are incomplete and of course it is a personal view - that's the whole point.

Housing conundrum in London

I went to a lecture this week at the University of Greenwich, given by Nick Raynsford MP on the subject of housing.  He has 40 years local and central government experience in this field and an encyclopaedic knowledge.  These are my thoughts that he stimulated.

I never knew that after World War II there was a policy to reduce the size of London, which was part of the rationale for the New Towns outside but near London.  Apparently this policy failed because there was a negative economic effect, and by the 70s the policy was reversed.

The problem in London is the lack of affordable housing.  We all know this.  The conundrum is what to do about it.

Just leaving it to the private sector does not work because they are always looking for maximum profit, and there will always be a large disparity in the incomes of different people, meaning that the low-income people get priced out.  One obvious solution to this is to have more supply than demand, but the private sector are not daft enough to do that.

So what about regulation of the private sector, at least in the rental market – what about going back to rent control?  The danger is that the properties will not be maintained by the landlords, and at some point landlords will step away from the market creating a huge rental shortage.  What could be helpful is regulation to limit rent increases over, say, a 3 year period, allowing for some certainty for the tenant without locking them in.

Do we need public sector controlled housing then, back to council houses?  Was it a huge mistake to allow them to be bought at all, let alone at far below the market price?  It seems there is no appetite in government to go back to this model, although I don’t see anything wrong with it – why not a PFI on a block of flats so that the government is in control, the developer gets paid over time, and the tenants are protected?  The favoured model for this seems to be Housing Associations, and that’s fine – my mother and brother live in such a flat and it works well for them.  Can we get more joint developments between housing associations, government and the developer companies?

I asked the devil’s advocate question “why not seek to make London smaller again, or at least stay the same size, and focus on housing expansion elsewhere in the UK?”.  The answer came that it would, as post-war, be an economic mistake to limit London’s growth … however there’s nothing wrong with initiatives elsewhere in the UK as well.

Mr Raynsford’s summary was that we need sensible, not extreme, action on many fronts.  I agree, because as with all significant challenges where there is no single magic bullet, we need the cumulative effect of many coherent and aligned actions to achieve a sustained response.  I pointed out that the challenge for our society is that housing policy needs to be strategic over a long timescale, and yet politicians who are masters of the policy operate on a comparatively short-term basis.  Mr Raynsford smiled and agreed.

CODA

It occurs to me that everyone still uses the phrase “getting on the property ladder” and I have been saying for a few years now that it’s not a ladder, it’s a roller-coaster, and if property prices are falling (or you need flexibility on your location) then renting is far better.  We still seem to have in our DNA this need to own our property, and it really doesn’t always make sense.  Worse still, the whole expectation that it is a ladder, allowing you to climb up the wealth tree because the next owners will pay far more than an inflationary increase, is surely part of the reason that we now have this problem – young people with normal jobs cannot afford to buy a property.  I benefited from the boom in the 80s, got started with just our own money, got up the ladder to a big house with mortgage paid off – without that I would be poorer now … but I am going to be poorer anyway because I need to fund the deposits for my two daughters so they can buy their first property.  It’s a mad circle.

Recalling UK MPs - blunter or sharper democracy?

38degrees have a campaign to create the ability for the electorate in an MP's constituency to Recall him or her from Parliament and force a by-election.  Whilst clearly there can be debate about the numbers that are required to make this happen, the principle is surely sound that an MP should be answerable to and accountable to all of their constituents - an extension of that notoriously blunt instrument we call democracy?  In my mind, not quite that simple ...

Here is the email exchange with my MP where I push the 38degrees approach, and below it is an email from me to 38degrees where I'm playing devil's advocate in the other direction.

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Dear Rt Hon. Nick Raynsford MP,

The government’s new law to allow voters to sack MPs is simply not strong enough - it is unlikely to ever be usable, and then it is controlled by a panel of MPs.  People’s trust in politics and democracy is at an all time low. Giving normal people the democratic, properly managed power to recall their MP could be the most significant change to the way Britain does politics in decades – and it’s within our grasp.

As my MP, please will you back the only serious alternative by signing up to support the real recall law?

You can read the draft law here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2014-2015/0088/150088.pdf

Thank you for your communication regarding your support for a ‘Recall Bill’. Please accept my apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

The right to recall MPs was an idea discussed in the run-up to the General Election of 2010. The Liberal Democrat Leader, Nick Clegg, who as Deputy Prime Minister has responsibility for constitutional reform, has since argued that the original proposals were only ever intended to apply to MPs who have been found guilty of breaching parliamentary rules. Predictably, Liberal Democrat support has waned significantly since the party reneged on several of its pre-election pledges, such as the promise to scrap tuition fees.

This highlights the difficulties of implementing a recall system. MPs have to vote on a very large number of issues throughout the course of a parliament, and the situation to which a voting issue relates may have changed since before the election. On this basis, an easy recall system, applying in any case where an MP is alleged to have broken an election pledge, would most probably affect every single present-day Member of Parliament.

To avoid this, most people believe that a threshold would need to be set, requiring at least 15 per cent of a constituency electorate to vote for such a recall.

However, this in turn poses awkward questions, such as how does that 15 per cent relate to the percentage of people who voted for the successful candidate? In cases where an individual voted for a candidate from a rival party who was not successful in being elected, would that same voter have the right to vote for the recall of an MP whose policies they did not vote for in the first place?

Whilst I have some sympathy with the idea of recalling who have flagrantly broken election pledges, I do see many problems with implementing it in practice, and it is for these reasons that I believe the current arrangements – where an MP is answerable to an electorate every four to five years, and can be stripped of office if convicted of a criminal offence – is the most appropriate arrangement to have in place. On a separate note, you may already be aware that I myself will not be seeking re-election at the next General Election, and will be standing down.

Thank you again for contacting me about this matter.

Yours sincerely  Nick Raynsford MP

Dear Rt Hon. Nick Raynsford MP

Thank you for your response, and I'm sorry to hear you will be standing down in 2015.

Can I just take issue, for the record, with a couple of points you made below.  You seem to morph from breaking parliamentary rules to breaking election pledges, which is not I think the same thing.  There is no reference to pledges or rules in the proposed Act available through the link in my email.  Nor is there any reference to how people voted at the previous election.  An elected MP represents all the people in his or her constituency, not just those who voted for him or her.  The principle of the Act is quite simple; if a proportion of the electorate believe their MP is performing poorly in representing them, then they can recall that MP.  This is surely democracy in action.  Can you not see that this would incentivise MPs to be far more focused on and accountable to their electorate?  Surely a good thing.

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Nic Vine to 38degrees

I have succeeded in engaging my MP Nick Raynsford in an email debate on this issue, starting with the form email that you provided.

However it occurs to me there is a problem:  what if we have a prime minister who is doing something unpopular in the short-term for the long-term good of the country ... and a powerful lobbying organisation stirs things up sufficiently in his or her constituency that a Recall is enacted.  Is that really what we want?  In other words should the Recall not be constrained to demonstrable under-performance such as breaking rules, not voting, not spending time in the constituency.  I read through the draft Act and perhaps I missed it but i could not see any conditions on the reason for the Recall.  If we can Recall just because we don't like what s/he is doing, isn't that a recipe for chaos rather than improved democracy?

Gagging & Voting - UK

I wrote this email to my MP via 38degrees:

In February I, along with 60,000 others, wrote to Ed Miliband asking him to publicly commit to repealing the gagging law. Last week 38degrees met with Angela Eagle and whilst agreeing it was poor legislation she said that these decisions are made by a wider group of people within the Labour party.

As my local MP, please can you use your influence to pressure your party into scrapping this undemocratic law.  It is crucial that all MPs call for a Labour Party commitment to repeal this law.  It needs to go into your manifesto.

I believe the constraint on charities and organisations that campaign on issues is an outrageous attack on my freedom to spend my money to make my voice heard.  Part of my decision on how to vote will depend on parties' position on this.

Thank you.

In early April Labour, i.e. Ed Miliband, committed to repeal this if they win the election in 2015.  I'm not sure they committed to a timescale, and I'm pretty sure they didn't say what happens if they are in a coalition.  And what if Labour are not in (part) power in June 2015?  

This gagging law still needs to be repealed, or at least changed to exempt charities and other organisations that campaign on issues and are not aligned with any political party or independent candidate.

Christine Lagarde's view of the future ... and mine

Here's an example of me posting something because it gets it into play, and removes a piece of paper from my pending tray, even though I haven't achieved a complete analysis.

I watched Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF, give the annual BBC Richard Dimbleby Lecture on 4 Feb 14.  Her title was A New Multilateralism for the 21st Century
- the text is on the IMF site.

Here are the notes I made as I watched:

• digital revolution
• hyper-connectivity
• tweet and the Arab Spring
• we can eradicate poverty
• we could have more frequent financial crises
• the UN recognises almost 4,000 non-government organisations
• with more connection we have less consensus
• three big challenge areas:

1. demography & migration
2. environment:  water, food, energy - climate change - pay for the damage caused
3. income inequality - economists see importance now - inclusive growth

• global interest before self-interest
• rekindle the Bretton Woods spirit

Yes, that's it, that's my notes.  The speech reached across the world and way out into the future.  It's worth reading the whole text via the link above.

My difficulty is that even the IMF still seems to see growth, ok, inclusive growth, as the answer to all things with the implication that it is a sustainable model into the medium term (many decades) future.  

I simply don't agree.  It seems to me that the emerging economies are being guided, beguiled, suckered or forced into repeating the same mistakes the developed economies have made in their financial management.  The program on China by Robert Peston this week only reinforces that view.

We need a business model for the world that is 'beyond growth'.  I say 'beyond' because clearly we need some more growth to climb out of the current mess, if that is even possible (and Moneyweek says for the UK it's not - we will apparently collapse like Greece).  However we should be thinking now about the multi-decade strategy that creates stability and prosperity (and equality) without relying solely on continued growth for ever.

Watch this space (blog) for further thinking.

Joined up Journalism

I recently rediscovered Adam Curtis, the investigative journalist and documentary film-maker.  I can't imagine what made me lose him in the first place - he's a man to follow.

I read his blog of Dec 2013 subtitled "The point at which journalism fails and modern power begins", and it gave me considerable pause for thought.

For some time I have been thinking that our global society is so complex that it's impossible to really validate any particular analysis or explanation that is offered by expert observers or the experts themselves.  To be technologically topical, the trouble with Big Data is that you can choose to slice and dice it in a way that proves the point you want to make for your own nefarious purposes.

Going back to the Curtis blog, he talks about McClure's Magazine which at the beginning of the 1900s did the first big exposé of bad practice in big business and politics.  But could the readers validate what McClure was saying?  I bet the targets of his three articles had some strong denials and counter explanations.  Or was the Magazine simply publishing on a wider scale what the readers already knew to be true?  So do we believe McClure?  How do we validate that?  Actually the answer is partly in the work at that time, because they did produce hard evidence, and partly in the lens of historical perspective, which shows the same picture from multiple sources.

Curtis says "The new journalism that McClure began spread like wildfire - and politicians took notice. They were led by the new President, Theodore Roosevelt, who decided to use the law to break the monopolies - or what he called "The Octopus" that was strangling democracy."  But Curtis makes a very simple link there, that Roosevelt took notice of McClure's journalism; that's not proved, although they apparently knew each other - Roosevelt already had a record as Police Commissioner of New York City and then Governor of New York of cleaning up the systems and removing corruption and fraud.  So do we believe Curtis?  How do we validate that? Perhaps I could if I did research beyond a quick google (which proved nothing), but is the public going to do that?  In principle I believe Curtis, or at least I believe his intentions, because of his body of work.  But it was complicated then, in 1906 - how many more times the power of ten is it complicated now?

Curtis ends with "Maybe today we are being farmed by the new system of power. But we can't see quite how it is happening - and we need a new journalism to explain what is really going on."  Yet are we not doing the investigative, exposure journalism all over the place now - wouldn't McClure be proud?  Is the problem simply that it is not joined up? And is that cock-up ... or conspiracy?  

Maybe we can't or won't join up the dots to see the biggest of pictures because the landscape is just too damned big.  And maybe because people, journalists included, have to specialise or focus on specific areas because they can't cover everything, and then they want to keep within that area in order to increase their seniority, to become an expert.

So perhaps we need a new breed of meta-journalists, who will analyse and investigate journalism and work in a very horizontal manner and try to join up the problems we see in banking, in taxation, in corporate structures, in food quality, in political management, in environmental management, in arms sales, and so on and so on.  Quite a challenge.

The Gagging Law - still confused

So 38degrees asked me to fill in a survey, having lost the campaign to stop the component of the Lobbying Bill that will stop organisations like 38degrees campaigning on 'political' issues during the 12 months before an election.  (The vague wording here reflects my uncertainty on the detail, hence the suggestions below.)

Here's some of their questions and my answers:

What other ideas do you have for how we should handle the law?
There are a lot of simple statements, accusations and government-bashing going around.  It would be helpful to have a simple factual summary of precisely how the law restricts the normal 38degrees' activity

How would you describe to another 38 Degrees member why it’s worth carrying on campaigning?
The vote in the Lords was in effect a tie.  Therefore in principle nothing was decided, so nothing should change until it is re-examined.

Any other comments?
Presumably a number of Liberal Democrats voted for this, and yet by all accounts it is neither liberal nor democratic - could we get a LibDem MP and a Lord to explain to us precisely why they voted for it.  If we understand the other view we can spot and exploit weaknesses.

Endorphins for the mature citizen

Good news - I have discovered a couple of 'natural highs' for the older person.

As a younger man, I used to go running irregularly on some slightly spurious grounds of 'keeping fit'.  I was never really fit, and getting fit (for a non-athlete) takes a year of focused effort rather than a few weeks ... but that, as they say, is another blog.

The point is that I used to feel the 'runner's high' generally thought to be caused by endorphins - the natural narcotics in my body, triggered by the physical exercise.

Now that I'm a mature citizen (and no, I don't mean senior!), I have given up the running - I think it's too risky for my knees and ankles which, unlike hips these days, are still nasty, painful and difficult things to repair.

Instead I go walking ... and I don't mean strolling, and not quite speed walking, but certainly fast enough to get my heart-rate up and encourage me to focus on posture.  I do a 2-mile walk around Greenwich Park most mornings, and now I've been doing that for a couple of years I feel that my body (I suppose really my brain) is looking forward to it. When I can't or don't do it, I definitely feel a sense of missing something.  I may not be getting a 'walker's high' in the same way a runner does, yet there's definitely a positive feedback loop going on, and perhaps some modest endorphin production.

There's a another non-physical 'rush' I have recently identified, which is the main trigger for this blog.  When I start reading a book, fiction or non-fiction, that is absorbing, stretching, challenging, and well-written ... I feel a wave of pleasure, excitement and anticipation flow through my head.  After I put it down and continue with (get back to) work or whatever higher priority task is at hand, I can feel the book calling to me ... just as Greenwich Park does on a day when I have not walked.

The particular book that gave rise to the above is God's Debris by Scott Adams (he of Dilbert fame), and the particular rush was enhanced by stumbling across it this morning on my hard drive (it's an ebook) - I apparently downloaded it in 2006 and never got round to 'opening' it - ah those far-off days with no time to read.  It was further enhanced by the ridiculous coincidence that only yesterday I put the latest Scott Adams book onto my Amazon wishlist!  It kind-of feels the same as the 'feel-good' from physical exercise, with the added benefit that I can keep doing it for longer.

Yes, yes - I know this is my reserved time for working on my own book.  In my defence I was looking on my PC for some old notes to incorporate into my seminal work - not that I'm short of content you understand, more to show the consistency and intellectual growth of my thinking (!).  In my further defence, if I didn't take 15 minutes to write this now, it would go onto a list somewhere if it's lucky, only to fall off that list or randomly re-appear in 5 years' time ... and the world would be deprived of this content.

Self-discipline versus a wandering mind and many topics

The self-discipline explains the lack of blogging recently; I have promised myself more focus on the book I'm writing, fixed hours in the day, content targets, and less time getting distracted (interested ... puzzled ... outraged) by current affairs, science, history and anything else that wonders across my vision.

I am fond of saying that "I know a bit about quite a few things, and I have an opinion on everything";  this works well as an ice-breaker in a group of people, whether work or social.  I believe it's true, and I could spend all week blogging about topics I see in just the Saturday Guardian.  Self-discipline is hard!

I watched Professor Brian Cox recently giving a lecture on space & time - yes, it was the Science of Doctor Who, but this was proper grown-up stuff presented in a virtuosic manner.  I used to think Brian Cox was annoying but this lecture won me over.  Since then I have been thinking a lot about past and future light cones and the whole physical structure of the universe ... I haven't quite finished yet, so look out for a blog in, say, 2026.  And you still believe the bit about improved self-discipline?

My name is Nic Vine, and I find (almost) everything interesting and worthy of analysis.

Nevertheless, that one weird old tip (to use a current online vernacular) of assigning certain hours of the day as not just "writing is priority" but actually "writing is all I do" does work.  It's obvious really.  I don't know why I took so long to adopt it.  So the book will be finished in 2014, and no I'll not be tied down any further because I want it to be fun, not a millstone.

O2/Sky broadband saga resolution

So finally the saga is over - the line is fixed and I have been credited a month's charge, a whole £20, and they have promised to take up the communication/management failure between O2 and BT OpenReach.

Taking up from the last blog, then.  The engineers did arrive on 23rd as promised - a he and a she, where it appeared the she was being supervised.  She knew what she was doing, and he was checking.  Everything was alright in the house (of course), and they went off to the Exchange, leaving the pole to later if all else failed.  They could do this because he was 'frame trained' and therefore allowed into the Exchange.  They were back very promptly, it took 5 minutes to find my connection in the frame and remove a strand of wire that had fallen over it causing a short.

Aaaagh - this could have been done a week before if OpenReach had checked the Exchange then as their engineer (not frame trained) requested.  

The engineers were good enough to hang around while I checked that I had a good internet connection, even though their responsibility ends at the test socket in the wall box.  Good service from them.

So I called 800 230 0202 again, told them it was fixed, reinforced the point that we had lost a week for no good reason, and reminded them that they had promised to give me one month's credit.  The young lady in Derry said she'd do that right away.  Oh then later in the day I got another of those emails and texts telling me they are still working on our fault - this was after the text that said the fault should be fixed now - fills you with confidence, doesn't it.

I decided to wait a few days, not least to ensure the broadband was stable, before chasing the credit and entering my complaint about the whole saga.  Frankly it was a relief to not think about O2 for a few days.

Then blow me on 29 Oct we are notified of the next bill and there is no credit applied at all.  Time to immediately write a lengthy letter of complaint to complaintreviewservice@o2.com laying out the whole dreadful saga.  They have a 7-day response commitment, so I duly noted it in my calendar for chasing.

Much to my surprise today, 01 Nov, I get a call from the complaintreviewservice which is apologetic, appears to genuinely understand my frustrations and the fact that errors must have been made between O2 and OpenReach, and immediately applies a £20 credit to my account (which I can see online, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this).

So will I still carry out my threat to remove broadband, home phone, mobile broadband and two mobiles from O2?  We'll all just have to wait and see ...

Broken O2/Sky broadband and poor change management

This is a personal outpouring which nevertheless plays into my professional position as a change strategist.

Over the last 5 years my wife and I have moved to O2 for all our comms: 2 mobile phones, home phone+broadband, and mobile broadband for when we're sailing. You might say that's risky – eggs & basket – however we thought the risk was outweighed by convenience (and discounts) of one supplier, given our perception of the high quality of the O2 brand.

Until 10 days ago the service was great … well, in the sense that we rarely needed service. The occasional call on 202 or visit to an O2 shop went pretty smoothly. One problem using the mobile broadband dongle was resolved through an online chat with a Guru. The broadband in particular just worked – never needed to touch the router, wi-fi the same.

12 days ago on 9 Oct the phone and broadband just went dead. Called 800 230 0202 late in the day and they initiated a 2-hour line test straight away. Next morning it was all working again, so I called and told them this, and off we went. That seemed like good service.

The next day broadband was very slow and got worse until on 13 Oct the broadband and phone were dead again. This is where we entered the madness, and I'll spare you the blow-by-blow. Suffice to say that O2 kept saying they would call back with test results or next action and they almost never did – it was usually me calling them. The only thing in their favour is that they always answer the phone on the first ring, and the calls are free. Other factors in the frustration:

• their telephone equipment is awful because you get huge background noise and distortion, which combined with strong Derry accents makes it hard to understand them
• the number they had in the database to call us on was the home phone which is broken - duh
• an engineer wasn't booked because of some problem on their system
• I have never managed to speak to 'second level' who I believe interface with BT OpenReach, I can only get the call centre who have limited information and influence

An Openreach engineer finally came on 16 Oct, checked everything ok at the house, definitely a line problem somewhere, put in a call for someone to check the Exchange, promised he'd call me with an update … and that was the last I heard of any of that.

On 18 Oct a manager at the call centre said he'd get Level 2 to call me that day to discuss status (after putting my mobile into their database) – never happened.

On 20 Oct I spoke to another manager at the call centre, having been notified of an engineer booking for 23^rd – I expressed my frustration and anger at some length, he sympathised and agreed I was not being unreasonable, I said if it is not fixed by 21^st then I will be going onto social media with this, he said there's nothing he could do to get an engineer earlier. The only offer I got was that he said he'd cancel November's charges as compensation.

Now it's the 22^nd and I'm expecting an engineer tomorrow morning. No pressure, but by golly he or she had better deliver.

The wider background to this, of O2 selling their broadband service to Sky, is where the change strategy comes in.** The irony is that I have just written a general blog about KIS n Tell change management, which means Keeping It Simple and communicating it well. Unfortunately O2 and Sky have failed on this, quite dramatically in my view. In the past few months I have received letters and emails advising me of the sale and reassuring me that the deals will be at least as good under Sky (so I'll still get the discount with Sky for having an O2 mobile, will I? Fantastic), and that the transition will happen by April 2014, with 2 months notice.  The main thing I want is no interruption to service, as well as no cost increase of course.

Not far into the madness summarised above it occurred to me that the transition may have started, and my breakage is a result of that. This is reinforced by the fact that we receive up to 3 emails a day branded Sky but sent from customer.service@o2broadband.co.uk, which simply say “sorry, still working on it” with no contact details other than the head office postal address, and with links to Help and Terms which fail because o2-mail.co.uk is not found! We receive the same number of texts a day, saying the same thing, from 'Mybroadband” and it's not clear who that is. They both give the number of the call centre who when I asked said they ”are still O2”. My only channel of communication is with the call centre who just follow the process and cannot talk to me about the fault. Oh and they suggested I contact the complaint review service.

So in summary it's very confusing, I don't know who I'm really dealing with, and I don't have a decent channel of communication to talk to someone who knows what's really going on with my fault.

** If you are interested in change management and change strategy, you could do worse than to look at my professional site at www.nicvine.com

Syria - still - again

Despite our Commons' vote - the right result albeit perhaps by accident - we need to be vigilant.  With the Americans now beginning to say they will make a bigger strike in which amounts to regime-change, and some UK MPs saying they want another vote, there is still a danger that we will be party to a huge military mistake ... again.

We must continue the pressure on our elected representatives, directly and indirectly, to avoid military action and focus on diplomatic and humanitarian actions.  

It's as simple as that.

If you see two people fighting you don't rush up and stab the one you think is most at fault.  Bombing, no matter how surgical the strike is intended to be, is an escalation of the violence and that is not a humanitarian act and it is not what the British people want. 

 

The cost of a military strike should instead be spent on UN-organised aid all around Syria's borders for the refugees, and the political effort of a military strike should instead be expended upon diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the civil war.  There are no simple answers, as there were none in Afghanistan and Iraq before, both with dreadful continuing violence.  As a nation and a UN member we need to relentlessly support democracy and help in brokering peace at every possible moment.

Syria - NO to UK military action

I sent the following message today to my MP, Nick Raynsford (Lab), Vince Cable (LibDem), and Lord Strathclyde (Con), Leader of the Lords - it's not well researched or cross-referenced, and it's not beautiful English ... it's what I feel and there's no time to spare:

I do not wish the UK to take any action using military force in Syria, nor to support the USA or any other country in so doing.

 

I implore you to search your conscience on the question of the UK becoming involved in the Syrian civil war, and then to vote against any such motion.

 

Chemical weapons are an emotive issue, yet as a country we must proceed logically.  Let me make just a few points:

1. of course our armed forces, and those of the USA and possibly even the French, are eager to do what they are trained for, to exercise their skills to their best ability - which is why their counsel should not be the only one
2. we should listen with equal weight to those with very similar experience who are now retired and therefore have no particular incentive - every one I have heard has counselled against military action
3. it is not logical to think that we can make some kind of strike that will (a) only hit the chemical weapons installations, (b) have the effect of stopping the use of chemical weapons again, and (c) not have any knock-on effects in the region and our relationship with all the players in the Middle East
4. have you stopped to consider why this chemical weapon attack was in a part of Damascus and why the televison coverage of the aftermath was so detailed?  We don't normally see people dying on our screens.  Is it possible that the Assad regime want the West to strike at him, that this will strengthen him and further his agenda?  Furthermore have you considered that by firing upon Assad's forces we are militarily siding with the opposition, and means we are at risk of providing help to Al Qaeda elements
5. finally to say the unsayable:  why is the use of chemical weapons a call to arms for western countries when Syria has been murdering hundreds of civilians with bombs and bullets for months?;  if we are so horrified by death at the hands of government why don't we intervene in Egypt?

Of course civil war is appalling and the deaths of civilians is horrifying;  we should be doing everything in our power socially and economically to calm the 'fire' of civil war, to provide humanitarian aid, to support the surrounding countries in containing knock-on effects.

 

Please vote against any motion that instructs or encourages the UK to use or support military force in Syria.

Improvements to the blunt instrument of Democracy

Here we are, 2 years away from the next General Election in the UK (unless the Lib Dems break the coalition early).  You can feel the attention of the political parties switching from government & opposition to getting (re)elected.  I can feel my frustration rising at the ineptitude and energy-sapping effect of the whole process.

There are a million articles on this whole subject, and I have read a few good ones - why should I add another one?  Partly it's cathartic for me, so it matters little if no-one is reading. 

However I also want to start a campaign for offering solutions rather than just erudite critiques and analyses of the problem.  It doesn't matter that I am no expert on government or political parties, it doesn't matter that my solutions are undoubtedly flawed and lacking in detail.  I am the common man, and I want government in my name.  The more of us who propose solutions, no matter how sketchy or oddball, the more we are contributing to the democratic process and stimulating the right kind of debate.

Government in my name is perhaps the biggest challenge for democracy, because a system of 2, 3 or even 4 major parties ensures that a very sizeable minority did not vote for the government policies in any given government.  This is compounded by governments wilfully failing to adhere to their election manifestos.  Of course government of any colour is a matter of flexibility and compromise, because no country is immune from external economic factors and unexpected events.  They should however stick to their principles.

Before my constructive inputs, let me comment on my frustrations in the political sphere that pertains in Aug 2013.  

• the Conservatives have just hired Jim Messina, an American re-election strategist who worked in both Obama (democrat!) campaigns, and he will stay in the USA and report to both Australian Lynton Crosby (Election Advisor, and co-founder of CTF Partners referred to as a lobbying firm and accused of working for 'big tobacco'), and Grant Shapps (Party Co-Chairman, user of alter egos and founder of PrintHouse Corporation and HowToCorp, accused of plagiarising web content and false testimonials) - so we can believe everything we're going to be told there then
• the Lib Dems are trapped on the underside of the coalition - we hear little about the good they have done, and much about their failures - they will disappear almost with trace unless they are far more assertive in publicising their positive activities and explaining the necessary compromises
• Labour are doing exactly what I am struggling against, they criticise without having credible alternatives - many people, including within their party, are saying they don't know what they stand for now
• the minority parties get almost no coverage in the press - I have no idea what they are thinking and achieving
• the press in any case, even those with the best intentions, acts as a filter - as a common man I don't have the time or expertise to root out the facts behind the issues they choose to publicise, let alone the issues they ignore

Here are my solutions:
1. enforce manifestos to have a common framework of headings under which the party defines their track record, their view of the challenges and their policies for managing and improving the situation nationally - then the electorate can effectively compare credibility, understanding and intention
2. individual candidates must then produce more detail within this manifesto framework, both consistent with the national approach and relevant to their area - then the electorate can compare the local view in the national context
3. a single non-commercial website, managed say by the electoral commission, should allow an equal amount of space to every party and each candidate, or independent, to hold the manifesto information at no cost - then we have a single version of the truth both before and after the election
3. move to proportional representation - then we have a better mix of representation, with more people having cast some kind of vote (2nd or even 3rd choice) for elected representatives (and until then, vote on the basis of your local candidates rather than the national party)
4. severely restrict spending on election campaigns, and also the methods of raising money, using a fixed amount per candidate that is inversely proportional to the number of candidates in the party, which has the effect of supporting minority parties whose voices are so often drowned out - then we have a slightly less uneven playing field
5. monthly live debates on TV between the leaders of all parties to address questions raised by the public (only those public who voted in the last election) - running throughout the life of the parliament, with only the last 3 months devoted to electioneering
6. allow for an electorate to remove their representative

... there's more, this will do for a start.

Wimbledon Ladies Final day

Had a fabulous day at Wimbledon on 6 Jul.  

Started with a veterans match on Court No 3: Leconte & Bahrami, both huge comedians, v. McNamara & McNamee - all still wonderfully skilled, despite it being 30 years or so since their hey day.

Wonderful, perfect weather, our own fizz & strawbs on a bench outside Centre Court.

Then into Centre court, Gangway 513 Row Z - up in the shade, with cool air blowing - a real result.

Then an excellent Ladies Final, Lisicki's nerves taking nothing away from Bartoli's energy and accuracy.















Followed by Men's Doubles which goes so fast, and the Ladies Doubles almost as fast.

Everything in Wimbledon, and on London Transport, worked perfectly.

I've been sailing

Here's what I have been doing for the last 2 months, sailing halfway round the UK in our yacht:  click here

It was a fantastic experience for my wife, Lesley, and I.

Charitable Donations

I’m only a sample of one, and although I know others who think like me this is hardly a scientific or significant analysis; nevertheless I think it’s instructive.

• I never give where I believe government should provide, e.g. systematic gaps in health & benefits – I prefer to pressure government, no matter how remotely for a systematic solution
• I do give to causes I know and trust in terms of the money going to the right place e.g. the Meniere’s Society where I was a Trustee
• I do give spontaneously where I admire the effort and courage of the fund-raising individual e.g. David Walliams’ swimming marathons, Eddie Izzard’s running marathons
• I do give a small amount of money every time I’m asked by a friend or work colleague who is doing a sponsored something – I can afford it and it’s a politeness and a community action
• I have put in effort rather than money, by sponsored swimming, and I have waived money, by singing for charity (no, they weren’t paying me to stop).

What conclusion can we draw from that?  Perhaps that I’m an unsympathetic, inconsistent, knee-jerking, celebrity-influenced egotist.  Instead, or perhaps in addition, I think it’s fair to say that:

• I like to see value for money, as in all my expenditure, and I have a fear of supporting bloated bureaucracies rather than the intended recipients
• I accept the occasional tactical need to support what should be a government responsibility, but much prefer a strategic approach where government more predictably does the right thing on our behalf
• I acknowledge the pleasure in being associated with good social action, very occasionally getting active myself

Projects like HS2 and understanding the case

I am ambivalent towards HS2 (I don't live anywhere near the route), and the recent phase 2 announcements have done nothing to dispel that.  If there was a referendum on it, I would instinctively vote 'no' because it's a huge cost over 20 years (approaching a generation) which delivers only an incremental improvement to travel.

However, there's the problem ... "instinctively". It is very hard, on this and many other issues facing the UK, for even a reasonably well-informed member of the public to get to the bottom of the business case. Quite apart from the technical and financial complexity, there is the political positioning and obfuscation from all interested parties.

I have two radical suggestions:

1.  the government strategy should be more about creating work, communities and culture all over the UK, and less about people constantly travelling between big cities; the technology of the industrial revolution encouraged specialisation and centralisation, whereas the technology of the communications revolution (yes, the one we’re in right now) should encourage de-centralisation and multi-skilled communities.

2.  I should start a 'campaign for clear analysis' (CAMCAN) which will provide a simple business case framework of costs, measurable benefits, quantified risks and alternatives.  This could then be populated for each major UK project for the population at large to understand and meaningfully compare.  (This might just be useful for the upcoming EU Referendum.)

Coalition - a game of Two Halves

Not a 'game' at all, of course - rather the serious business of being responsible, mature public servants engaged in governing the country for the common good of all it's people.

So the endless question from a media that always seems most interested in looking for cracks and driving wedges:  how on earth can two parties govern together whilst gearing up to campaign separately?

I think the answer is simple, so long as the people involved are mature, responsible and dedicated to providing the best possible public service.   (Hmmm)

Each party has to be clear about it's current policies in the coalition context, which it will pursue up to the moment the government is dissolved, and it's future policies for when it is a majority party.  It's not rocket science to be able to have two implementation plans within one consistent framework of principle.

The majority of the electorate surely understands that a manifesto is rarely implemented without constraints ... there are always constraints in the state of the nation that is handed over to the new government, and in the European and global economic and financial climates that prevail.  Being in a coalition is another constraint, which requires perhaps even more negotiation and compromise than is usual ... and in these difficult times I believe the coalition has been a strength for the country, and not least because they have young, energetic leaders who have got things done in appalling financial circumstances.

On a related tack, it would be helpful if the media would sometimes ask positive constructive questions, instead of always trying to find fault and trip up.  A question "why is there an apparent conflict between X and Y" will be answered along the lines of "there is no conflict" which leaves us none the wiser.  Whereas a question "how are you going to achieve the promised x% or £yBn, and how will you measure that achievement" requires an answer of some positive substance. 

Right now I think that if I could vote in 2015 for a coalition, then I would do so.

Leveson needs implementing - letter to MP

From	Nic Vine <leveson@nicvine.com> Greenwich London SE10
To	Nick Raynsford MP
Subject	Please implement the Leveson report in full as promised
Message	I am appalled at the Prime Minister's apparent betrayal of our trust. It looks as though he is being bent by the winds of the press, when what he should do is have the courage to lead a cross-party consensus. Before Lord Justice Leveson’s report into press behaviour was published the leaders of all three main political parties said publicly and privately  to victims of press abuse that his recommendations should be taken forward on a cross party basis. They also said that they would implement them as long as they were proportionate and workable. Lord Justice Leveson has recommended self-regulation of the press, with its effectiveness and independence (from industry and politcians) guaranteed by law. This is NOT the same as regulation by law. If self-regulation has no legally-backed guarantee, it will lack the independence and teeth that are the hallmark of the current failed system of self-regulation and those for the past 70 years. As your constituent I urge you to write to the Prime Minister asking him to back Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations in full as he said he would, and to have the courage to lead a cross-party consensus to achieve a lasting legacy of sustainable press regulation. Let's find a way to do it, rather than find reasons to not do it. Yours sincerely, Nic Vine Greenwich London SE10 (You can find Hacked Off on Facebook and on twitter, @hackinginquiry) (You can sign the petition at  http://hackinginquiry.org/)