In order to offer someone a financial reward without him working for it, the government must first ensure that somebody else works for a financial reward without getting it. There is no other way.

(Source)

A snippet from the UK government’s consultation paper on the future of the Ordnance Survey, page 13, relating to emailed submissions for the consultation:

An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on the Department.

But if it’s possible to say that, it means that these ridiculous disclaimers have no legal force, and that fact has been accepted by the government. So can everyone please, please stop using them?

The news media and the public were bowled over in surprise last night as a politician kept a previous promise he had made.

The politician’s office was quick to assure journalists that this was in no way meant to set a precedent, and that normal service would be resumed shortly.

Pregnancy advisory services – including abortion information – could be advertised on TV and radio under proposals due to be released.

Restrictions on condom adverts could also be relaxed, as part of plans aimed at reducing high UK rates of teenage pregnancy and sexual infections.

Abortion (or any form of pregnancy advice or procedure, for that matter) doesn’t reduce teenage pregnancy or sexual infection. That would be like providing more ambulances in order to reduce road accidents.

Would it be cynical to suggest that it’s not teenage pregnancy they want to reduce, but teenage birth? After all, whenever a young child becomes a father or mother, it hits the headlines and politicians decry it as terrible. But when there are around 10 abortions a day in that age bracket, the same people don’t seem to say very much.

(This kerfuffle may have passed my US readers by; basically, Sir Fred Goodwin used to be chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, our worst-performing bank. He got a big pension payoff, £650,000 a year, and now politicians and the government – which has since come to own 70% of RBS – are upset and want the money back.) From BBC News:

“Nobody disputes that Sir Fred should be deprived of his pension,” said [Liberal Democrat] Treasury spokesman Vince Cable.

“The only issue is what is practical.”

Well, Vince, I dispute it. They probably shouldn’t have given it to him but, now that he has it, it’s his. A cornerstone of dealing with others justly and fairly is that when you make a deal and give your word, you stick to it, even if it turns out to be a bad deal.

If the UK Government had put half as much energy into saving waste in other areas that they’ve put into trying to get back the £16m of Fred Goodwin’s pension, the country would be a lot better off. This synthetic anger serves only to distract the attention of the public from the real problems.

“Ministers are about to conceal MPs’ expenses, even though the public has just paid £1m to get them all ready for publication, and even though the tax man expects citizens to do what MPs don’t have to. They buried the news on the day of the Heathrow runway announcement. This is heading in the diametric wrong direction from government openness.”

UK residents, please see the MySociety blog post to read what you can do to make sure this doesn’t happen.

I have just confirmed with Enfield Council that I can now technically be prosecuted for leaving my bedroom door open because, as of yesterday, it bears an ugly blue “Fire Door – Keep Shut” sign.

The Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006, section 10, paragraph f).

Time for a change of government, I think.

The Open Rights Group – the EFF for the UK – is having a supporters drive, palindromically named ORG-GRO. In order to be financially stable, they need 1500 supporters – which isn’t many, considering how many people in the UK should care about their digital rights. This is how far they’ve got (using a cute live-updated totalizer widget):

The list of stuff they’ve done in the past couple of years is incredibly long for a two-full-time-person organization. Help them defend your freedoms – sign up today. Only a fiver a month – not much more than the price of a pint of beer plus the price of the petrol to drive a mile to the pub. :-)

The Open Rights Group has published its report on the e-counting of votes cast in the London Mayoral Elections in May. I was an Electoral Observer for ORG at these elections, at the Alexandra Palace count centre.

The report finds that:

…there is insufficient evidence available to allow independent observers to state reliably whether the results declared in the May 2008 elections for the Mayor of London and the London Assembly are an accurate representation of voters’ intentions.

NHS (National Health Service) budget for 2007-8: £105.6bn.

Cost of buying every single one of the 60 million people in the UK private health insurance with BUPA at a decent level of cover: 60 million x £100/month x 12 months = £72bn.

Is it that simple, or have I missed something? (I guess Accident and Emergency must cost something; BUPA doesn’t have to provide that service.)

I spent some of last Thursday and most of last Friday being an Election Observer for the Open Rights Group, observing the London Mayoral and Assembly elections. ORG’s interest is particularly with the electronic vote counting, which happened at three locations around the city. I personally found it very interesting, and some exciting things happened. ORG will be publishing a report in mid-June, and you can then read all about it. :-)

For readers in the UK: the excellent TheyWorkForYou has just launched a campaign, “Free Our Bills“, to persuade Parliament to provide bills in a well-marked-up format rather than the mangled HTML they use now (technical details). They need this to provide useful services like email alerts, details of what amendments your MP is asking for or voting on, and so on.

If you think this is a good idea, please lend your support to the campaign.

For readers in the US: no, “Free Our Bills” is not a campaign for a massive tax reduction. Although it would be a good name for one.

Not a good day for the Green Party of the UK…

(Is there a better way in the GIMP to draw an ellipse than to do selection subtraction with the circle selection tool and then do a flood fill?)