I’m watching a Channel 4 documentary called Third Class Post, in which the filmmaker spends five months undercover working as a postman in the Paddington sorting office.

There are big problems at Royal Mail, many of them with the staff. The filmmaker keeps pointing out whenever someone breaks a law: the guy selling conterfeit trainers (not a real crime); or the guy smoking joints on the job (again, not a real crime). Criminality is beside the point; what’s really important is that these people are breaking their contracts with their employer. Staff slacking off at work or generally not doing their jobs properly is something that employers should be able to deal with. The trouble is, employment law makes it very hard to fire people. I think you’d have a far more motivated workforce if you summarily fired anyone who didn’t shape up, and anyway, most people are honest and hard-working so getting a decent workforce should just be a matter of getting rid of the few bad seeds. This should be legally easy to do but isn’t.

I predict getting rid of all employment law would do wonders for the economy. Jobs would therefore be easier to find in the first place; there would be a wider choice of contracts because they wouldn’t all be standardised to fit the rules; wages may well be higher because employers wouldn’t have to pay un-productive workers; and conditions would be better because good employees wouldn’t be subsidising the efforts of bad ones.

Another problem with Royal Mail, at least as far as can be told from this documentary, is the management. Middle managers often don’t seem to care when they discover mail that hasn’t been delivered, so the problem goes un-checked. Higher management has allowed machines to get old and break down, and has made decisions to hire agency staff resulting in more staff problems. Some of the agency staff filmed were part of a Nigerian gang who stole passports, credit cards and chequebooks. Typically a badly managed company will be out-competed by a well managed one.

Also, typically, if I find that a company I deal with has staff that are thieves, or gives otherwise unsatisfactory service, I can switch to another company. This is good for me and it applies pressure to the errant company to fix things. Not so with the Royal Mail, who have a government imposed monopoly on letters up to 350 grammes.

At the same time, Royal Mail is effectively crippled by the same regulators who prevent them from raising prices. It is cost cutting that has led to the hiring of sub-standard staff and prevented modernisation of machinery.

De-regulating the insdustry might well make posting letters to and from out of the way locations more expensive. But the improved choice and service that competition brings would be more than worth it. More importantly, it’s the right thing to do. After all, if I offer to deliver your letters for a fee I could theoretically end up in jail, and that can’t be right…

Posted by Rob Fisher as Introspection at 11:01 PM EDT

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While using Google as a spell-checker, I came across the site Instant Bureaucracy. It contains various handy forms, available as PDFs, including a “sexual congress request”…

All persons wishing to request an act of fornication with [insert name here], ”The Designated Point of Lust,” are required to submit this form, in triplicate, no fewer than 72 hours prior to the requested copulation period.

…and a “termination of acquaintance form”:

Reasons for Termination: (check all that apply)…Whiney Voice…Incorrect Religion…Vegetarianism…

Posted by Rob Fisher as Links at 4:55 PM EDT

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I passed my motorcycle test today, and had planned to go out for a ride with my Dad this afternoon. But I discovered that, in the time between failing my first test and now, the tax had expired on my bike.

This has two main implications. The first is that I can’t ride it until the insurance certificate makes it through the post, because you need that to get tax. The second is that since I hadn’t given tax, for an unused bike being kept in a garage, a second thought, I failed to send in a “statutory off-road notification” (SORN). Thanks to the new tax rules and automatic fines, I may end up in trouble over forgetting to fill in a form.

It’s not as if I haven’t had to jump through enough hoops already:

• Compulsory basic training (at which I had to produce my driving license)
• Theory test (at which I had to produce my license and CBT certificate)
• Direct access course
• Bike test (at which I had to produce my license and CBT certificate and theory test certificate)
• Insurance

And now a combination of tax and SORN.

The automatic fines are supposed to be, “aimed at cracking down on individuals who do not tax their vehicles.” If I fall foul of them then they missed their target, because I do tax my vehicles. They are shown to be fines against forgetfulness; against failing to cope with the ever increasing arbitrary bureaucracy that defines one’s relationship with the modern state; against being one of those people who finds it much easier to apply themselves to productive activities than to spend time satisfying ancilliary whims.

But the concept of SORN is even more problematic than the fines. I may yet get away with the fine, I haven’t received a summons despite being told that they’re normally sent out 14 days after the tax expires (it’s been 27 days), and there may well be an appeals procedure. But SORN itself requires you to declare to the authorities that you’re not breaking the law. It’s an unjust requirement. One of the reasons I’m against compulsory ID cards is becuse of the principle that a law abiding citizen should not have to come into contact with the state. A law against not declaring you haven’t broken another law is absurd.

Some may argue that SORN prevents people going around in un-taxed, un-insured, un-roadworthy vehicles. I find that hard to believe. Anyone determined enough would simply fill in a false SORN and be in much the same situation as if there was no SORN: waiting for a policeman to notice the out-of-date tax disc. What’s left is a system that merely penalises people for getting out of date with the paperwork.

More generally, the concept of creating hoops for people to jump to as a preventative measure is flawed. The law should be about dealing with people who have committed crime, not hassling everybody who conceivably might.

Update: This never came to anything. I went to the Post Office, filled in the form, and got the tax disc with no drama at all. Maybe the notion of 14 days and then you’re automatically fined is just a threat; maybe the DVLA was too incompetent to catch me; or what the hell, maybe they really can tell the difference between forgetfulness and deliberate evasion. The point remains that according to the letter of the law you can get fined for not filling in a form.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Civil Liberties, Driving at 4:26 PM EDT

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I was recently contacted by the man behind Ianism.com, regarding my video tutorials, and it seems he has a rather good blog going.

Not to be missed from the archives are a story about a student whose father convinces her what a bad idea socialism is, the Canadian officials who went to Europe to study non-existant ID cards, and an essay explaining why we should be concerned when governments start talking about non-tax based revenue:

If a Government is generating revenues through the sale of products or services, it is taking away opportunities from other businesses. As well, it is taxing the very businesses it is competing against.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Links at 2:26 AM EDT

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Yesterday’s Telegraph had a story about the UN Oil for Food programme on the front page. It would seem Saddam Hussein was siphoning off a lot of the money, with help from various bribed officials.

I’ve noticed people before describing the UN as a logistics arm for dictators. At first I didn’t understand what that meant. Now it seems clear that in attempting to provide aid, the UN ends up merely supporting tyrants who inevitably benefit from it.

Perry de Havilland argues that aid sent to Zimbabwe also does more harm than good. Any aid sent there is either directly intercepted by Mugabe, or it helps him out anyway by protecting him from the consequences of his actions. Much as someone dependent on welfare can get away with not running their life properly, Mugabe gets away with not running Zimbabwe properly thanks to the foreign aid.

So if the UN doesn’t back military action when it is called upon (I’m thinking about its impotence in Kosovo and Iraq), and its aid programmes only prolong misery, what good does it do?

Posted by Rob Fisher as News at 7:19 PM EDT

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The Post Office has recently updated their postcode database system so that it is faster, easier to use, doesn’t require any old fashioned “logging in”, runs on a wider variety of web browsers, and is more accessible to those using such things as screen readers.

Here it is.

Contrast it with the old site. It’s slow, klunky, has loads of pointless graphics, forces you to spend ages logging in, and won’t even display properly in Lynx.

Progress eh? Oh, wait…

(Link courtesy of NTK, which is a somewhat quirky site but well worth checking in on once in a while).

Posted by Rob Fisher as Links at 7:04 PM EDT

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It is unusual to find anti-Socialist art at all, never mind in London, never mind in public space such as a tube station. But that is exactly what I seem to see every time I pass through Gloucester Road station on the District Line where Mark Titchner’s work will be displayed until April 19th.

It consists of a series of Soviet style posters with slogans such as, “WE WANT TO LIVE AND IMPROVE”, “WE WANT YOUR CONTRIBUTION” and “WE WANT RESPONSIBLITIES TO BE SHARED BY ALL”, and, perhaps most sinisterly of all, “WE WANT TO NURTURE AND PROTECT”.

These are exactly the sort of things that governments stand for, and presented in this way they appear disturbing, just as they should.

I was surprised then to learn from the TfL web page that the phrases were taken from corporate communications issued by the world’s top ten brands. Perhaps the artist is trying to make the usual leftist anti-capitalist statement; perhaps he is trying to say, “look how scary these companies are!” I do not know what the artist’s intentions are, but I would find this less surprising than anti-government art.

It’s also worth mentioning that the words “WE WANT” have been added to phrases. It’s easy to see contexts in which “your contribution” and “nurture and protect” can be used harmlessly, so it’s possible that the artist is being somewhat disingenuous.

Even so, a company that says “we want your contribution” is at least not going to throw you in jail if you fail to provide what it wants.

In the end I like it because it does make one think about what is really meant by such phrases, whoever uses them, and it serves as a reminder to always be suspicious of people who say they want to help you, or improve your life or the world.

Jonny Baker Blog has commentary and an animated GIF of some of the images.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Introspection at 4:41 PM EDT

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The BBC’s If… documentary last night was entitled, “If we
don’t stop eating.” It interviewed various “experts”, most of whom
were fascists. Let me explain.

The thesis of so many of the programme’s carefully selected experts is
that obese people are victims of the food industry. They’re somehow
forced into eating unhealthy food by being hypnotised by flickering
images of hamburgers. Even their children are coerced by evil
advertising, a remarkable notion given that so few children are to be
found in supermarkets buying the weekly shop.

I reject utterly the idea that advertising forces people to make
choices they wouldn’t otherwise make. This suggests that people
aren’t able to think for themselves. I can think for myself, and
everyone I know can too. Young children may not be so discerning, but
that’s not an argument against advertising, it’s an argument for
parenting.

The experts’ solution is more regulation. Clearly it is the
government’s responsibility to protect the increasing proportion of
obese people by forcing food companies to produce healthier food,
censoring their speech to prevent advertising of unhealthy food to
children, replacing it with government funded indoctrination about the
goodness of vegetables, and taxing unhealthy food. But regulation and
tax and censorship are all ways of imposing one person’s will onto
others. Whatever the motives, they are immoral.

Food companies exist to make a profit. This does not mean that they
are evil and out to maximise profits by selling evil food, because
that is not how profits are made. Food companies make the food people
want, because that is how best to make a profit.
Here is a shocking revelation: Food companies are making unhealthy
food to the exact proportion that people want to eat
it!

I can vouch for that. I for one enjoy eating fatty food. It tastes
good. I’m happy to live in a land of such plenty that I can stuff
myself with enough food to turn me into the Michelin man if I so
choose. I’d like to retain the freedom to continue to eat what I want
without interference. I don’t relish the thought of supermarkets
stocked with bland, government approved mulch. I’m perfectly happy
the way things are, and I don’t want money coerced from me to be spent
on coercing others into not providing what I want. I’d much prefer
the food Nazis to leave me and everone else alone.

If you want more healthy food, just go and buy it. If the healthy
food you want is not available, deal with it. Go and start your own
health food company. If there is such an un-met demand, you’ll be
rich beyond your wildest dreams and able to sleep soundly
knowing that you’ve saved so many from fat-ness. Such is the wonder
of capitalism! If you’re not skilled in business, or it turns out
that no-one wants to buy your healthy food because they’re quite happy
eating burgers thank-you very much, then grow your own food and eat
that. Don’t co-opt government force to re-engineer society to meet
your agenda. That’s what a fascist would do.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft at 12:09 PM EDT

10 Comments »

I don’t agree with everything Boris Johnson says, but I always find him entertaining, and his performance on Room 101 tonight demonstrated just what a clever bloke he is underneath all the bumbling. He managed to do a huge speech praising Linda Lee Potter, only to twist it around at the end into scathing criticism, and best of all he made an excellent case against smoking bans.

He pointed out that the hysteria about passive smoking is just that, and he had facts and figures to back up his argument. (It’s true, by the way, people who have actually read the research on passive smoking know that none of it has found any significant risk).

Happily, he and Paul Merton went on to smoke cigars before putting smoking bans into Room 101!

Posted by Rob Fisher as Reviews at 9:48 PM EDT

5 Comments »

Last year I went to the Glastonbury Festival with a group of about eight friends, and a fantastic time was had by all. So much so that we decided to go again this year.

But the rules have changed. In an effort to eliminate ticket touts, the organisers have limited the number of tickets each person can buy to two. In addition, each ticket is printed with a name and address so that they can’t be transferred.

The results are predictable. Since large groups can no longer buy tickets all together, the total number of transactions required to sell all the tickets has increased. The single ticket agent is swamped. Because demand is so high, it has become a lottery as to who gets tickets and who doesn’t. It now looks as if only me and one friend from our group are going. No doubt the event will be full of people walking about in pairs.

Needless to say, I preferred it when there were touts. The trouble with an event like Glastonbury is that there is a strictly limited supply of tickets. Normally in a market, demand is controlled through pricing. Hence rare items such as antiques sell for high prices no matter what their material worth. In the case of Glastonbury tickets, they are sold far below their market value. Normally ticket touts correct for this by inflating the price of tickets to their real value. If someone is prepared to pay three times the face value of a ticket, then that means that is what the ticket is worth to that person.

The alternative is rationing. This is what happens with NHS dentists. NHS dentistry is subsidised so that it costs less than its market value. The result is huge waiting lists. To say that touting tickets is immoral is to say that distributing goods by lottery is somehow better than distributing them to those who are prepared to pay the most.

Not that ticket touts ever made it easier to get Glastonbury tickets. It just meant that it was at least possible to get tickets if you were prepared to pay extra for them, and now that is no longer an option. What this does show is that getting rid of ticket touts does not make it any easier to get tickets. So we have the worst of both worlds.

The first thing the organisers should do is abandon the two tickets per person limit. It makes it impossible to go in a group which is likely to ruin the atmosphere of the event. Secondly, they should face up to the economic reality. Either admit that it’s a lottery, and lottery the tickets out, or increase the face value of the tickets to reduce demand. Pretending that everyone has a fair shot at cheap tickets just causes pain and disappointment.

Update: At about the same time as I was writing this, Mark Cornish was having similar thoughts over on the Adam Smith Institute Weblog.

Buyers from touts gain, too. Instead of taking their chances and losing out in the usual lottery allocation or waiting lines, they simply pay extra to get the tickets. The benefit of watching their favourite band or sports stars is greater to them than the extra cost. People who are time-poor would rather pay others such as touts to do the queueing.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Introspection at 10:13 PM EST

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