Who's doing the painting?

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The revelation that it is going to cost £900,000 to have an RAF aeroplane repainted in red, white and blue to boost the image of the PM when he travels abroad has raised more than a few eyebrows. There is a minor (?) question about how the PM is going to fly anywhere without having to go into quarantine for a fortnight when he returns (he surely wouldn’t want to be caught out breaking his own rules), although the story seems to suggest that the repainting job is going to take a while, so perhaps it won’t be finished until after the quarantine rules have been scrapped. It’s an expensive ego trip.

It made me wonder, though, about this story from late April about the emergency flight collecting PPE from China (picture from BBC story at the time). It was all arranged in a huge rush, allegedly, yet somehow the company managed to fit in the time and money to have the plane repainted in NHS livery before sending it out to China. Did that little PR exercise really cost them £900.000? Somehow, I doubt it. And I also doubt that it took very long to get the job done.

So, what’s the difference? I find myself wondering if this isn’t one of those very profitable outsourcing contracts which the MoD has negotiated under which the painting of aircraft is undertaken by a private company which charges an extortionate amount, completely legitimately under the terms of a poorly negotiated contract, all in the name of converting public cost into private profit. A bit like the £5,500 sink or the £884 chair, maybe. At £900,000, someone, somewhere must be making a lot of money.

Vanity headlines

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If there’s one thing that the Tories in the Assembly really like, it’s grabbing a dramatic headline about an alleged waste of money by the Labour Government.  And if there’s one thing that they avoid like the plague, it’s proposing constructive and helpful alternatives.  Their criticism last week of the expenditure by the Welsh Government on Cardiff Airport was a case in point.  Demanding that it be sold off unless it makes a profit (and if it ever did, I have no doubt that they’d demand that it also be sold off in order for that profit to end up in private rather than state hands) would take us back to where we were before the government bought the airport in the first place – it was failing, not least because it was suffering a serious lack of investment.  What they have not told us is what sort of future they see for the airport, although they leave the clear impression that they’d rather see it return to decline and failure in private hands than stand a chance of success following a reversal of the lack of private investment by the state.

The realities of geography don’t favour some of the wilder dreams of supporters of expanding the airport.  The catchment area for which Cardiff is the best and closest airport isn’t as large as that of its competitors – basically, it’s limited to Glamorgan and most of Dyfed.  Outside that area, Bristol, Birmingham and Liverpool are all potential – and in most cases, closer or more accessible – alternatives.  The idea that it can ever truly become an international airport serving the whole of Wales is a fantasy.  Expecting to be able to run a commercially-viable full range of international scheduled flights is unrealistic unless either the total number of passengers can be increased significantly (which would surely be contrary to environmental policy) or else passengers can be diverted from other airports which are currently more easily accessible to them.  If Cardiff airport did not exist, would anyone seriously suggest trying to establish a full international airport at that location as a commercial enterprise?  I doubt it.

At the other extreme, there are those who would argue that air travel is so damaging that we should be deliberately restricting flying, and that far from increasing capacity and competition we should be seeking to reduce capacity.  I find it difficult to imagine such a scenario gaining popular support at present, but under such conditions it would hard to see a future for Cardiff Airport at all. 

In between those options, the likeliest – almost by default – future for the airport is one based on slow organic growth, where the extent of that growth depends more on population changes and increasing affluence and is matched with appropriate investment in increased capacity, than on proactive government measures to promote and expand the airport at the expense of its competitors.  I find it hard to believe that the Tories actually want to see the airport fail and close (they certainly are never going to come out and say that), and maybe they even see its future in much the same way that I do.  What they fail to explain, however, is why private ownership would make that more likely to succeed than state ownership, when actual past experience demonstrates precisely the opposite.  Still, why let mere facts spoil a good headline?

The greater of two evils

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Poor Owen Smith.  People are being a bit beastly to him over a press release which he issued some years ago when he was working as a lobbyist for Pfizer.  It certainly seems to be clear that the press release in question expressed support for greater privatisation in the NHS; I can’t see how anyone can seriously deny that.  But the man himself has also been absolutely clear that he has always believed in the idea that the NHS should be free.  The problem is that people are having difficulty reconciling those two statements.

However, in fairness to him, it seems perfectly simple to reconcile the two things; at that time, he was speaking for his employer and expressing the employer’s opinion, but now he’s speaking as a politician and expressing his own views.  All perfectly straightforward and obvious.

The part I don’t understand though is this: why would anyone think that being willing to argue and lobby for a privatisation which you fervently oppose simply because you’re being paid to do so is somehow a lesser sin than actually supporting privatisation because you think it’s the right thing to do?  I’d have thought that was a bigger problem for a politician claiming to be principled, not a lesser one.

Privatise the Windsors?

Tweet Much of the coverage a couple of weeks ago about the privatisation of the Search and Rescue service seemed to take more interest in the link with a certain William of Windsor than with the impact on either those gainfully employed in the service or what I suppose we should, in today’s terminology, call “service users” or even “customers”.  As a general rule, those whose employment is privatised get to keep their jobs; they just get transferred to another employer who will, over time and despite TUPE provisions, find ways of reducing their employees’ pay and benefits whilst maximising their own rewards.

In this case, it appears that William and his co-workers will be spared such a fate.  It set me thinking though – is the government approach to privatisation radical enough?  Why not for instance privatise the entire monarchy?

Much of the argument for retention of the monarchy is around the alleged tourist value – but might a private company be better at exploiting that potential?  I’m sure that there’s a company somewhere willing to take this enterprise on and run it at a profit.

Instead of us paying the Royals through the civil list, we can run it like the railways; the successful bidder will have to pay an agreed annual charge for the rights to the brand.  They’d have to charge for opening roads, bridges, and buildings of course in order to generate an income stream.  Some sort of sliding scale, perhaps, based on degree of royalness.

They’d also want to rationalise the estate.  There are far too many castles (and rooms inside them) for so few people; those which could not be made to turn a profit could be sold, or even demolished to make way for more profitable developments. 

Such residual roles as the monarchy possesses in the constitution wouldn’t be missed that much; it’s more pretence than real power anyway.  And if they want the brand leader to come and declare parliament open every now and then, I’m sure that they could make the figures show that it’s cheaper to pay a private company to send her than it is to employ her directly.  That’d be in line with normal government approach to the economics of privatisation.

This proposal could also solve all the problems and issues related to future succession as well.  I can’t see any way that any profit-oriented organisation would leave the future of the brand image to the vagaries of human genetics.  No, a privatised monarchy would soon rationalise that little issue.

The government claims that there are no sacred cows; so why should the monarchy be an exception?  Not so much "off with their heads" as simply taking the headcount off the public payroll...

Still digging

Tweet The more the Tories try and 'clarify' their position on the NHS in the wake of Dan Hannan's comments, the deeper they seem to be digging themselves.

Last week, Cameron himself pledged his support for the NHS - by promising to open the NHS to "new providers". This is clearly an indication of an intention to move elements of health care from the public sector to the private sector. Promising to privatise parts of the NHS seems to be a curious way of showing support for it.

On the same day, the spokesman for the Conservatives in Wales in the National Assembly wrote a letter to the Western Mail in which he said that they would not scrap the policy of free prescriptions. They would, however, only safeguard the policy for 'most people', and would 'allow' others to make a 'small contribution' to the cost. To me 'allowing' people to pay sounds like it would be voluntary; somehow I doubt that is what he means, since they are counting on generating a net saving of £30million.

In yesterday's Sunday Times, there was a report of a survey by ComRes, which indicated that some two thirds of Tory MPs want to privatise at least some elements of the NHS, and move away from a system funded by taxes to an insurance-based system.

So, it seems that they plan to support the NHS by privatising parts of it, maintain the policy of free prescriptions by making some people pay for them, and deep down, many of them are opposed to the whole principle on which the NHS is based. Hannan managed to open a very large can of worms with his interview on US television – and we haven't got to the bottom if it yet.

Post Office Disappointment

Tweet The Post Office has now confirmed its plans to close post offices at Talog, Trelech and Llanboidy, despite the efforts of local campaigners to save them. It's a huge disappointment, but I can't honestly say that it's a surprise. Given the guidelines and instructions given to the Post Office by the Government, it was always hard to see how they could both listen to local communities and obey the government's instructions.

In this case, given that they're in government, Labour must inevitably take the brunt of the responsibility; but the Tories don't come out of it at all well either, and not just because they closed thousands of post offices themselves when in government.

From the outset, Labour MPs were on something of a hiding to nothing. After all, there is no real debate about the fact that the programme has emanated from the government, rather than from the Post Office. The line taken by our local Labour MP was a very simple one. He claims that he didn't actually vote for the closure programme; what he voted for was the financial package which backs up the closure programme, and without which the closure programme couldn’t go ahead. Bit of a fine distinction to me.

And although he supported the government, and the government has told the post office to close 2,500 post offices, that didn't prevent him objecting to any and all of the closures if they were in his constituency, on the basis that the Post Office had chosen the 'wrong ones' to close. Presumably therefore, he'd be happy if they were all in someone else's constituency. And he repeatedly insisted that the Post Office was supporting 'too large a network' and had to become 'more efficient'. To me, and many other, it all sounded like support for the plans.

The Tory line suffered from a few problems as well. The Post Office has lost a lot of business because it's been put out to tender by the Government. So, claimed one Tory, it's the Post Office's fault for tendering too high. Well, er, no, not quite. The Government has told them to cut their losses, so how exactly does cutting their prices help them - especially when their competitors are able to offer 'loss leaders' in order to win business?

In case that isn't entirely clear, let me put it in these terms – the government is closing post offices because they're making a loss, because the government has taken business away from them and given it to private companies who are probably also making a loss on the same business.

Now it sounds at first as if the real crazies here are the companies who are taking on business at a loss; but there's method in their madness. The more business they take from the post office, the more the post office network shrinks; and the more the post office network shrinks, the more business there is for the private companies to win. And, when they've succeeded in closing the post office down more or less completely, they'll be able to raise their prices again, won't they?

Closing a first class network of outlets for government services in order to pass the work over to the private sector is a classic example of LabourTory short-sightedness.

Just as a PS - One of the lines peddled by our Conservative AM was that she knows from personal experience how damaging that it is to local communities when their post office is closed, since the office in her village has already been closed. One slight problem with this empathy – her post office was closed by the Conservative government. I'd be more convinced if I thought a future Tory Government would behave any differently.

Pills and Potions

Tweet I'm not convinced that yesterday's story about numbers of items prescribed actually tells us anything meaningful about the effects of the introduction of free prescriptions in Wales. Without a good deal more background information on trends before and after the introduction of the policy, and a lot more detail on what is being prescribed to which categories of patients, I don't see how anyone can conclude that the policy is a "disaster" as some have been quick to claim.

That lack of precision has not prevented those who oppose the policy from jumping to conclusions, of course. It's the old politician's motto - why let mere facts get in the way of a good press release?

The basic case for free prescriptions – which I entirely support – has always been that medicines are an integral part of health care, and that health care should be free to users at the point of demand. The chief argument of opponents has always been that some people can afford to pay for their medicines and that would free up money for other purposes; but I've never understood why they apply that logic only to prescription medicines. Why single out just one aspect of health care for means testing, and why choose this particular aspect?

Some people can afford to pay for visiting the doctor; some can afford to pay for their operations, or their physiotherapy, or their nursing care. Why do some politicians argue that all of these should be free, but medicines should not? I've never heard any of them explain why medicines are so different from all other aspects of health care that they should be paid for whilst everything else should be free.

And since the objections to free prescriptions generally come from the political right, I wonder whether this isn't the thin end of the wedge for people who really believe, but don't admit it, that large swathes of our health services should be means tested rather than free, in order to give yet more tax cuts to the better-off.

That doesn't mean that the policy is entirely without its problems; some people do now visit the doctor unnecessarily to get a prescription for over-the-counter medicines. But some people also visit casualty departments unnecessarily for trivial injuries – isn't the effect the same? If there are cases where the system is being abused, I'd prefer that we attempted to deal with the abuse rather than re-introduce means-tested elements to the health service.