Monday Moan 66

 

POTS AND KETTLES

The Public Accounts Committee under the expert and entirely neutral guidance of its shy and retiring Chair, Margaret Hodge, has produced its report into the rural broadband programme.  Readers may recall the evidence session and the wholly out-of-character combative approach adopted by Ms Hodge (see Moan 57 and others). 

 

The Report contains no surprises.  No mention of who has actually written it, or of who advised the Committee. Most of it looks as though it was written before the evidence session and has just had a few sentences added to reflect what was said on the day, as well as to add things that the Committee “has been told” subsequently. 

 

What I hadn’t realised previously was that the Committee’s investigation attracted only five submissions in total, and that Fujitsu, the last company to withdraw from the bidding process for Government funding, was not one of them.  So the Committee never got to ask them why they withdrew.  That would have been instructive, wouldn’t it?  Maybe there is a clue in the statement from Duncan Tait, CEO of Fujitsu, commenting on their withdrawal from one of the earlier bids – “We withdrew because we cannot currently see a clear path towards a mass market that is required to attract leading retail service providers.”  So, a straightforward commercial decision. No conspiracy. No mismanagement by the Government. No plot from BT.

 

The report is shoddy. It simply reiterates what the Committee thought all along. It has not been swayed in the slightest by the rebuttal of many of its positions by the witnesses it heard. It has taken no account, apparently, of BT’s 83-point response to statements made by Committee members during the hearing.

 

I like the comment from one observer that it’s ironic to have a group of MPs moaning about the lack of value for money for the public in the broadband programme.  Pots and kettles, and all that.  And the same commentator reasonably adds that whilst he’s “not  a big fan of BT, if they don’t install rural broadband who will? No one else sees it as a viable commercial risk to get involved. We don’t see Sky or TalkTalk getting involved, they just moan about BT all the time.”

 

 

 

TIME TO GROW UP AND MOVE ON?

In President Obama’s first term, one of the most important of his achievements was to steer his healthcare reforms through the legislative process against the fiercest of opposition from his Republican opponents (and a few of his Democratic colleagues as well).  As mentioned in Moan 21, Obama’s plan to extend access to healthcare provisions to the poorer members of society – including the roughly 15% of Americans who have no health insurance – was considered by some to be an example of his communist beliefs.

 

I woke this morning to hear on the radio that the US Government was about to seize up, technically running out of money because the Congress has not yet passed a short-term funding Bill.  And the reason for this is that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is still fighting the ObamaCare health law (actually called the Affordable Care Act) passed in 2010.  The Democratic-controlled Senate will vote down the Republican spoiling tactic and Obama himself retains the veto over their proposals.  Leading light in the campaign of opposition is trustworthy Senator Ted Cruz, ex-lawyer, policy advisor to George W Bush, ex-Texan Solicitor-General, endorsed by the Tea Party.

 

This is not the first time the US Government has almost run out of money – and the most recent occasion was also caused by opposition to the healthcare reforms. But why is this still continuing three years after the law was passed?  

 

Lots of angles to this, including the uncomfortable fact that a Democratic President and Senate have to work with a Republican House of Representatives.  The ‘checks and balances’ of the American system actually make governing that country a bit of a nightmare (and that’s without considering the split of responsibilities between the Federal and State Governments).  This system of Government relies upon funding being approved periodically and the Obamacare reforms, although now part of the law, are scheduled to take effect gradually over a number of years.  So still plenty of opportunities for showboating by the opposition.

 

It’s also the case that whilst the healthcare reforms might seem sensible, obvious and mild to many in this country, they are designed to help the 15% or so of Americans who have been too poor or too ill to be able to get health insurance up to now.  The 85% in the other camp are almost unaffected.  This means that gathering the support of the 85% majority to help the remaining 15% is critical and it seems that the great American public aren’t quite ready for this.  Opinion polls suggest that a majority of people think the reforms will make their own costs higher, even though a majority also confess to not knowing what the proposals are or at least to not understanding them or how they will be affected by them.

 

Most telling of all, it seems that 73% of people are already satisfied with their healthcare arrangements.  Assuming that this 73% are to be found within the 85% who have health insurance, it is pretty obvious that human nature and the cult of looking after your own interests rather than those of others means that there is not going to be huge public support for helping the disenfranchised 15%.

 

For the nation that proclaims itself to be the leader of the free world and the shining beacon demonstrating why democractic government is the system all countries should follow, this is a sad state of affairs.  Self-interest, from politicians and citizens alike, appears to be the order of the day.  Posturing for electoral purposes by politicians is an inevitable element of a democratic system, much as we might wish it to be otherwise, but many Republicans in the USA seem so completely detached from anything other than their own rhetoric that, frankly, I don’t know whether to laugh or to fear for the future. 

 

I choose to laugh, but it’s a close decision.

 

 

GNOMES OF ZURICH

The annual extortion that is my house insurance is up for renewal.  The paperwork arrives – showing an increase of around 20% on last year’s premium.  So I call the company concerned (let’s call them Zurich).  Nice young man answers and agrees that my premium has gone up rather a lot, and that I have had no claims since last time.  The explanation is that they have put up all their prices by around 20%.  As if I didn’t know.

 

So we move onto the next stage.  I ask what they can do to reduce this extortionate premium.  Nothing at all, apparently.  Nothing apart from suggest that I take out a reduced level of cover that is.  What a strange idea – trying to sell me less insurance.

 

Gnomes of Zurich = Swiss bankers.  Bunch of them, I’d say.

 

 

 

ENTERPRISING ADVERTISING

Hats off to the Yorkshire Tourist Board for this brilliant example of subliminal advertising on the shirts of German side Wolfsburg.