Independent gets it wrong on maps

I've posted before about it being time to open up the OS Map resource which successive governments have missed. So was pretty surprised to see the David McCarthy in The Independent Internet maps 'demolish British history' making the mistake of thinking that it's the fault of the people who have to create their own maps.

The article was in the edition I bought friday, actually it's probably one of the worst I have read this year (sorry McCarthy). With not even a mention of the key point that OS refuse to license their material under reasonable terms. I'd love OS to provide their data so we can have public footpaths on Google maps.

It's just such a waste of the fabulous OS map resource at present. The OS have obviously some skilled staff at least, as they have their own internet map (so it is available on the "internet" McCarthy!) but have constrained it to such a tiny image, and you can't take a copy unless you screengrab it as they have blocked the right mouse button... pity the team who were forced to put those restrictions in. It will obviously open up eventually, but why ruin the sector for the next 10 years unnecessarily OS?

McCarthy even miss titles BCS the "British CartographicAL Society"

There is a reason not even government councils use OS maps. Anal licensing and poor integration possibilities mean the OS is again failing to make its mark online.

To prove the point, I checked the OS map online map browser and see all the flaws a site shoudl not have:

* It displays OS maps in a clunky small popup.
* It displays errors in yet another clunky small popup
* It doesn't offer alternatives if I miss spell "TEWKEXSBURY"
* I can't print the map
* I can't link to the map
* I can't email the link to anyone
* The UI is poor, I can't drag the view
* The zoom is poor, I can't use my scroll wheel
* The popups are full of adverts for Garmin, Philips, AZ, cicerone, Isys
Outrdoors, Jarrod, Memory map, and printed maps. They've got there
target the wrong way around, most people use internet maps these
days, when they are just trying to use the internet to sell offline maps.

The problem with OS maps is that its run by the government, and bureaucrats see no reason to change it from it's paper based existence unfortunately.. suck in the 1980s mindset, shame.

Political revival of Scots Gaelic

After the nationalist politicians in Wales have been desperately reviving the Welsh language, Scotland's nationalist politicians have also started along a track to the detriment of the citizens who elected them as well. The Scottish Parliament passed the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act back in 2005, establishing a quango called "Bòrd na Gàidhlig" to push Scots Gaelic back into Education and Scottish life from it's defunct position.

It's a sorry day for the students who could otherwise be spending those 4-6 hours a week learning another popular language to give them an advantage in life.

At least Scotland isn't trying to mandate school lessons in Gaelic... yet.. See Wikipedia's Language revival and Languages of the United Kingdom articles for further information.

Boost min wage to reduce inequality

The BBC are covering today research which shows the top 10% of earners are accelerating away from the population as a whole. If those 10% were taxed more this wouldn't be so bad under the last 10 years of Labour government.

The top 10% do not really matter that much, it's the average of the population that has to be improved. If the minimum wage was increased above 20% per annum this wouldn't be so pronounced after 10 years. Currently the min wage is £5.52, if increased at 20% for the next too years that would take it up to £7.94 per hour, taking the lowest salary up to £16,000.

The political revival of the Welsh language

It's a shame how things have gone in the last 10yrs regarding Welsh, from being a dead language only spoken by a few in the North West of the country (Snowdonia etc) it has had the political bellows firmly wedged into it, and they have managed to keep the embers burning at great cost to the UK and to the people of Wales.

The economic cost is plain:

• There is no economic benefit to speaking welsh when everyone in Wales speaks English.
• It costs the UK millions and millions to translate all official documents and leaflets into Welsh, when they are already struggling to assist "genuine" non-native English speakers to understand the paperwork they need to complete.

The strategy which should have been fostered:

• Assistance provided to the elderly generation who live in the North regions which don't have English as their first language.
• All schools teaching pupils in English.
• Encourage take up of a "genuine" foreign language in school, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese etc

Then:

• After the benefits of a workforce fluent in an international standard language and an equally useful second language are realised, phase out Welsh completely. Leaving Welsh like Cornish and Gaelic, Scots and Latin.

My welsh friends all broadly see Welsh as a waste of learning time when we live in such a connected world where English and another international language would be very useful.

The economic benefits of a workforce which can live and work in other areas of the UK and the world are a key point. I've seen no evidence to support teaching Welsh and reviving it further, everything points to it just being a nationalist political exercise which will do Wales no long term good. Will the Nationalists have the last laugh? or the citizens?

Things come in waves

The EU is currently continuing it's expansion east, doubling in size. I do wonder how long it will last, and if we will see an equal and opposite swing the other way just like CCCP and Yugoslavia did.

In 30-50 years time will we see a disentanglement effort and eventual peaceful breakup and separation?

I for one think the EU is something quite different from past efforts to integrate states. How things will fair after China and India change the world-trade map will be interesting to see, fingers crossed the EU lasts ;)

Regulating CCTV in the UK, Surveillance Protection Principles proposed

From last year's EthiComp Conference, A. A. Adams of Reading University presented Regulating CCTV.

Quotes from the Abstract: "Given that the number of CCTV cameras in the UK is the largest in the world, and given that it is unclear when video data should be regarded as Personal Data (or what rights a blanket definition would reasonably provide to the surveilled) it is claimed that a CCTV Act is needed in the UK"

"Specific proposals for securing data and infrastructure are suggested, in addition to some general Surveillance Protection Principles."

Time for Free Software addoption in whitehall?

Interesting article in the Guardian, Ignoring open source is costing us dear. Not making the most of these opportunities for cost savings does seem mad, spend the money savned on the front line services politicians keep talking about!. Hope the UK and Europe will consider adopting more Open Source/Free Software apps... what's good for Google, Amazon, Malmaison and Alfresco should at least be considered !

Lib Dems ensure Red Ken is reelected

We learned this week how Greg Dyke was forced to rule out a bid for London mayor. Ming Campbell put the boot into the Torys' proposal of a joint independent candidate to scupper that venture.

Ed Davey said: "the way to defeat him [Red Ken] is not to have an 'anyone-but-Ken' candidate, it is to win the argument over issues that matter to the capital."

Sounds like Ed Davey doesn't hasn't seen the realities of election politics; because the populace have so few opportunities express their opinion, when an opportunity does arrise after a long stint with a present party, the opponents often pick up many more votes than they could otherwise -- due to protest votes. Also, interestingly people won't want to risk a protest vote when things aren't going well, so Red Ken would have actually been at risk because he'd done "not that bad a job", as Greg highlights.

The Lib Dems command such a small amount of support, so why not form alliances with other parties and succeed overall? Also, while it's not to late for another Lib Dem leader!

Time to open up our data? (Ordinance Survey OS map)

Canada has just adopted a free model for map data, great news for the citizens and business of Canada!

The UK (and EU!) really needs to follow Canada's lead, opening up access to Ordinance Survey map data too, in addition Post Code and address data which will empower citizens and create new businesses. So come on MPs, create the opportunity!

Double the budget doesn't quite equal success

There's a piece on the BBC today about a private company charging premium prices for TV and incoming/outgoing calls. Should these private companies really be given contracts which allow them to make so much money out of people in need?

Gordon brown has increased the UK budget from £320 Billion back in 1997 to £537 Billion for the coming year, well above inflation; the NHS alone now gets £104 Billion. The problem is the money hasn't been injected and spent well, leaving no real improvement in the last 10 years. Only middle management has swelled, managing targets etc, heading for a narrower pyramid base than ever before! Someone needs to slim down management and delegate more decisions to the doctors and nurses as it worked previously. Could experienced private medical managers help improve the organisation? Only consider managers with a proven track record, and make sure they have the remit to push through reforms.

Patients may be forced to get a mobile phone now, so this company will loose out in the end; but they've missed an opportunity provide a great service for people to pay a reasonable price for. Providing patients their mobile on silent that is a much more convenient too.

Regarding this price hike, it's the same situation with car parking, trusts are even pleased to announce record profits from their clients (the injured and the families)! The good thing is that the pendulum is swinging the other way slowly now -- next even prescriptions will be free again! NHS dentists costs are already better, their do need to be a lot more NHS dentists still though. Fun times ahead eh!?

Hopeless parliament.uk webmasters?

This is either a large problem, or very humorous that the parliament.uk, website has had a broken "Find your MP" link for the last four days.

Is it any wonder parliament.uk is out innovated by the likes of writetothem.com and upmystreet.com? We need an clever bunch of people to provide the parliament services to subjects of the UK, and it seems they don't have that at present! So c'mon parliamentarians, get on top of things!

Gordon Brown's legacy

Gordon Brown's 10 year stint at the tiller of the UK economy is almost over; but what is his legacy in this relatively stable period since the Major government of the mid-90s? An interesting question, even if I do say so myself ;)

We've seen how Gordon Brown has made a few changes, and used a lot of spin in his presentation. When he first came in, he introduced special rules:

1. Gordon Brown's first rule declares that over an "economic cycle" he will only borrow to invest, but that "economic cycle" term isn't fixed and is open to fiddling by his department of statisticians (first it was 7 years, then 9, 10 and now 12! increasing the duration to fiddle it, to average it out in effect); and that all other spending must come from taxation revenue.
2. Gordon Brown's second rule declared that public debt must be kept at a prudent and stable level (whatever that is, in a reasonable interpretation). The economy has been strong, so it's not been necessary to break rule two officially -- however, it has been heavily broken by using PFI contracts which hide the public debt behind a long-term contract with a private company.

The Auditor General, Sir John Bourn, highlighted that by Gordon Brown excluding Network Rail's billions of debt from the government accounts, Gordon Brown has not met his spending rules. He also said Gordon Brown's means-testing and constant meddling has put administration costs at a ridiculous level compared to the total cost of the benefit schemes introduced. Almost as bad as the £25 Billion PFI debts underwritten by the government.

In another case of subterfuge, Gordon Brown changed the way inflation rates are measured to keep them appearing lower. In his pre-budget statement on 10 Dec 2003, Gordon Brown announced he was switching the UK inflation definition from RPI (reasonably broad base, excluding mortgage though) to CPI (narrow), cleverly hiding our inflation rate going up. RPI inflation for February 2007 was 3.7%, but CPI was only... 2.8%! -- you can see why he wants to hide the rise, it keeps the Bank of England's monetary policy from setting interest rates (2% above inflation) at the higher rate they should be (as I figure it).

Pensions is a big one: Nothing was taken into account for the fact that people live longer. Nothing was taken into account for if the stock-market didn't continue to rise at a quick rate beyond the dot-com era. On top of this, abolishing share dividend tax credits (aka ACT, essentially no tax on dividends from companies in which they owned shares), took £6 Billion out of pension pots each year since 2000, which compounded means over £100 Billion has now been removed (No wonder over 60,000 company pension funds have been wound up!) -- what a result Gordon!

Public sector borrowing will probably hit £36 Billion this year, not surprisingly the treasury is desperate for cash and is offering great deals on NS&I fixed-term stock Government bonds these days. So much for prudence Gordon eh!? I'll admit I've never been one to Gordon Brown-Nose, but I don't put him down unnecessarily, his Bank of England call was a good one.

I've broken down my overall points into successes and failures.

Failures

• Not taking the UK into the Euro when they had the necessary public support in '97.
• Abolishing share dividend tax credits.
• The public pensions black hole is now close to £90 Billion, which will have to come from somewhere.
• Council tax doubled because Gordon Brown puts the responsibility for additional services on local council budgets (and central government keep blaming local councils for putting it up).
  
• Hiding the inflation rate, by switching from RPI to CPI.
  
• Selling the UK's gold reserves at rock bottom prices.

Successes

• Passing responsibility for setting interest rates to the Bank of England.

If Brown wanted a genuine legacy, he could have done a U-turn on means-testing, then increase the tax-free allowance to £12,000, making the poorest in society better off; closing the gap with the middle-class. Fund this by introducing a top tax rate of 45-50% if necessary. Or Brown could have voted against war with Iraq.

In summary, the economy hasn't been wrecked, but it doesn't have the GDP vigour it had in the Major years after the recovery from Black Wednesday. Gordon has squandered to a certain degree a fantastic legacy, replacing it with rampant consumer debt, a trade deficit, pensions crisis and pubic debt. Brown's kept the UK economy going on borrowed money, the next 15 years will show how in debt the UK is, and will suffer unfortunately. Will history give him a better legacy than William Patterson? Will Gordon have a Profumo moment? Would he give an honoury place to Boris Berezovsky around his cabinet table? Anyway, who knows what the future holds, if Gordon Brown gets the top job it will be interesting to see if he fairs better in No.10 at least! The BBC background on Brown's shows where he cut his teeth. Now let's hope the leadership election is a little more interesting than Michael Howard's coronation... ;)

Blair the diplomat

15 British naval seamen arrested, apparently in another country's territorial waters, leaving our PM, Blair, as the best chance of a quick them released, what does he say? He rushes in, brash and bold, demanding their unconditional immediate release! The response? an equal backlash from the other country, what a result Tony!

After nearly 10 years in the top job I would have expected Blair to know very well how to get the most out of situations! (perhaps save NATO + Milosevic's duel..)

This all leads me to wonder if creating an international spat wasn't actually the intention all along..? Bumping up the anti with Iran as they're already in the spotlight over: Uranium enrichment, allegedly helping insurgents in Iraq and sending Revolutionary Guard officers. However, Iran just attended a very successful regional conference in Iraq -- perhaps someone was looking for an excuse to end that cooperation? Lest us forget, the US and Iran both benefit from opposing each other, which neatly keeps the populace focused on something other than domestic policy; as the Power of Nightmares highlights.

Anyway, Cherie, if you're reading this, perhaps Tony could do a with a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People!

Will Prince Charles bring an end to the Monarchy?

Will Prince Charles do for us what Parliament hasn't had the bottle to do so far? Europe has lost most of the monarchies which were around before WW1. Our little island has survived though; with our queen outlasting eight PMs by my calculation.

Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, is known to be a meddler though, and if he doesn't change when he gets the top job he might push things far enough for reform to finally take place. Sweden replaced the head of state with the speaker of the house, we could do something similar ;)

Would be an interesting situation if Parliament did want to remove King Charles III, as we don't have a written constitution and no real relevant historical precedents that I know of!

The PR facade of the bobby on the beat

This evening's Channel4 political slot had the Labour MP for tooting, Sadiq Khan, saying what a success moving police on to the beat had been. I'd like to see some accurate figures on this; I really doubt there is any notable reduction in crime rates or an improvement in civic cohesion; Khan only gave sound-bites to backup his points.

Dedicating police staff to what is essentially a PR exercise is a complete waste of tax-payers money in my view. Why not focus on tackling outstanding issues like unsolved crimes, or people trafficking?

Luckily those police walking the streets for no good reason aren't actually fully fledged police officers, and are only Community support officers. Which does lessen the wasted resource at least; it's still a big enough waste of money when budgets are so tight.

However, the real solution is to tackle the underlying social problems which cause the visible symptoms of crime and anti-social behaviour. Poverty and not having a job (for various reasons) are two big factors. Tackle these by building communities, creating jobs, providing social, youth and sports facilities for people to come together and make the most of life.

Let's see if any accurate figures materialise from Labour about the bobby on the beat, or even an independent study!? Or perhaps the next government will simply cut out PR exercises like this..

Junk caller number withheld ?

It's a shame, the TPS and the Information Commissioner's office can't do anything about junk calls, because unscrupulous companies are exploiting a loop hole. When asked why they are calling my non-publicly listed number they just claim the number has been generated using random modification of an existing number as a base -- which gets them off the hook with the IC's and TPS office. The legislation really needs to prevent all junk calls by default, sure if people really opt-into it then its fine, but we shouldn't be subject to interruption by these unscrupulous companies without opting-in. Regulation by "voluntary" industry groups like TPS/DMA/MPS isn't working because they are funded and represent financially the same companies they are supposed to be regulating! Conflict of interest ?

Junk calls often have the number displayed as "Withheld" (not to be confused with "Unknown"). I've been looking for a way to reject Withheld calls outright (aka Anonymous Call Rejection [ACR]), with a recorded message explaining that anonymous calls aren't accepted etc. I've not found a way to do it at present though. BT have their "Choose to Refuse" service on land-lines, which lets people reject individual numbers, and individual Withheld numbers (BT obviously knows the real number!). Also BT customers can dial *227# to reject all Withheld numbers from a BT line, and #227# to receive Withheld number calls again.. (A lot of legacy company PABX systems don't set a valid number still, so these won't get through) more info.

Apparently it is possible on some mobile networks, this page lists the GSM Caller ID codes, (background), however *30# sadly doesn't work on o2! Anyone able to reject Withheld calls on a UK mobile? Post a comment if you have managed it. This Caller ID FAQ has some useful info, which makes it sounds like o2 isn't working within the Telecoms Data Protection Directive (97/66/EC)!

In practice this kind of feature doesn't need to be server bound though, it could be a local setting to redirect to a special voice mail message etc. I'd code it myself if we had an open mobile phone platform!

Update: Samsung D900 can reject calls from Withheld or Unknown callers. N95 comes with Advanced Call Manager, as does Sony's P910i letting the user create whitelists and blacklists.

The Trap - What Happened To Our Dreams Of Freedom

This is the latest documentary series from Bafta award winning producer Adam Curtis (The Power of Nightmares). It's called The Trap, also a three part series, showing on BBC2 from 11 March at 21:00.

The first episode covers John Nash (as portrayed in A Beautiful Mind) and his work on Game Theory. Using examples like the Prisoners Dilemma and the Nash Equilibrium Curtis shows how these tecniques and models were applied in the political world. Utilised as a way of ordering the world by individuals working alone, and systems based on numbers like Thatcher's NHS restructuring of the late 1980s. Curtis examines the notions of freedom, and how a pretty simplistic model of human beings as self-serving, robotic creatures has led us to today's version of freedom. Looking at current affairs he explains that we are in a trap of our own making, showing how narrow and limited the present idea of freedom is.

The next episode (The Lonely Robot) shows how the model of freedom using numbers and the market was applied to other areas of society.

Should be fun!

Crossing The Line - The Story US Defector James Dresnok living in DPR Korea

BBCFour is showing the network premier of Crossing The Line (IMDB) on Thurs 22 March at 21:00. It's the story of James Dresnok American who has lived in Pyongyang (Capital of DPR Korea) since defecting during the Korean War. It was produced by Very Much So productions with Koryo Tours.

Will be interesting to see things from James' perspective.

Why student loans are a bad thing (tm)

Background: In the UK the Labour Party (who are currently in government) introduced £1,000 fees per annum and scrapped living grants for higher education back in '97. Then they did a U-Turn on their manifesto and introduced top up fees of £3,000 per annum, and will be increasing it again for certain degrees to £7,000 shortly.

Aside from charging for education being inherently wrong, they are going about it all the wrong way. They treat it as a conventional debt (sad that there is such a thing?), you get statements reminding you how much you owe, and you have to make repayments each month out of your earnings (or your employer does). This is like a mill-stone around an already debt laden country thanks to the credit happy culture fostered since the late 90s (still no health warnings on credit cards!).

The only acceptable way to recoup costs of education is to have a higher rate of graduate income tax, 1% would cover all their costs and the person wouldn't have to manage repayments themselves. So how about it Labour? do something which will assist a generation! and simplify the repayment system ;)

Free Software Tories

Only yesterday I was highlighting the way Free Software and Open source products have solved the problems that matter (at a fraction of the cost!). Strikingly, today the Tories followed the Green Party's anti-software patent direction last year, leading the way to an Open Source Government ;) Their news piece and speech by George Osborne sounds very promising, mainstream politics have caught up with industry trends at last! Does this mean the Tories how have thousands of new Free Software/Open Source supporters? Quite possibly, I'll definitely give them a thought when the time comes.

George is even using Firefox (albeit on windows, see yesterday's post George!). So they're starting to walk the walk, as much as they are talking the talk. Next step is the Desktop Linux switch in Conservative central office George!

Meanwhile Labour and the BBC have stuck to the traditional model and struck deals with Microsoft, you can see who is on the ball ! (Sign the iPlayer petition if you have a moment)

Let's see how these policies get taken forward; elections could well be interesting once more :)

Boris Johnson Blog Online

Boris Johnson renowned for astute wit now has is very own web presence with the Boris Johnson Blog. There is of cause the Wikipedia Boris Johnson page for those interested in his background. He often appears on Have I Got News For You.