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This was the unusual title chosen by author J K Rowling for her recent address at Harvard. It makes a wonderful read and has given me a couple of marvellous suggestions for my "Thought For The Week".
Read the text here
It's time for another week of postings in my long-running series called Forgotten World - a look at parts of the world that hardly feature in our media or thoughts. You can check the previous 135 entries here.
The Republic of Korea - otherwise known as South Korea - was proclaimed in August 1948 and received UN-backed support from the US after it was invaded by the North two years later. The Korean War ended in 1953 without a peace agreement leaving South Korea technically at war for more than fifty years. The following four decades were marked by authoritarian rule, while government-sponsored schemes encouraged the growth of family-owned industrial conglomerates, known as "chaebol", which helped to create one of the world's major economies. A multi-party political system was restored in 1987.
Today South Korea is a nation of 49 million with the 13th largest economy in the world and still among the world's fastest growing developed countries. It has a very advanced and modern infrastructure and is a world leader in information technology such as electronics, semiconductors, LCD displays, computers and mobile phones. It is defined as a High Income Nation by the World Bank and an Advanced Economy by the IMF and CIA. A major non-NATO ally, it has the world's sixth largest armed forces and one of the ten largest defence budgets in the world.
It's all about demand, right?
"A major factor behind the steady price rise, virtually everyone agrees, is that energy consumption is surging in high-growth countries, and oil supplies are not growing fast enough to keep up. But what confounds many experts is that the price of oil seems to be changing much faster than the world is changing. For example, it took five years, from 2002 to 2007, for oil to go up by $60 a barrel. In just the last year, it galloped another $60 higher. For the first time since oil drilling began in the 1850s, the price has climbed for seven consecutive years."
In my first blog posting on this subject, I argued that fear and speculation must be playing a major role in driving up prices so much faster than the market fundamentals would require or suggest. Others agree that speculation is at work:
"there is broad disagreement about the role of speculators in oil markets — particularly a new breed of financial investors, including pension funds and hedge funds, who view oil and other commodities as just another way to make money, like stocks, bonds and real estate.The evidence of their impact is mixed, but consumers and lawmakers nevertheless are furious, saying these new financial traders are driving up prices. "
"Some experts who see today’s oil market as a bubble point to the record-setting stake that institutional investors have taken in the commodity markets in the last several years, variously estimated at $140 billion to $250 billion. A growing portion of that stake reflects rising commodity prices, not new money flowing in."
Extracts from an article in the "New York Times".
This is a bubble which will burst - but let's hope that it's soon.
Although my 60th birthday was earlier in the week (see posting on Wednesday), it was yesterday that we had a gathering of family and friends to celebrate the event - and it was truly wonderful day.
The venue - organised by my wife Vee - was the Grim's Dyke Hotel, a country house that used to be occupied by Sir William Gilbert (of Gilbert & Sullivan fame). The actual location was the Music Room which has a floor to ceiling carved Alabaster fireplace and a minstrels gallery. The weather was wonderful and the food and service excellent.
No less than 63 of us (including seven children) gathered for the celebration. Vee offered some welcoming words and our son Richard gave a short toast. I then took the opportunity of a captive audience to give a speech which paid tribute to some of the people who had influenced each of the first six decades of my life and were present at the party. Finally Georgeanne and Andy led a sing-song in my honour.
I received an embarrassing number of gifts. There were no less than 16 books, so I'll have a busy summer. There were three bottles of champagne, so Vee and I can be very merry. There were two presents picking up on the year of my birth (1948): a full set of British coins for that year and an original edition of "The Aeroplane" magazine for the actual day of my birth. A really fun gift was a floating globe using clever magnets and technology. Then I was given a token for a flight in a glider. There were another 19 cards, making a total of 46, plus 20 electronic messages. I had no idea I had so many friends!
Truly I am blessed with a wonderful family and a fantastic set of friends and I thank them all for making this day so very special.
All of the media today mark the first anniversary of Gordon Brown taking over from Tony Blair as Prime Minister. Naturally the "Guardian has a good deal of analysis. It could hardly bee a worse day for anniversary reflections, following on appalling opinion poll ratings for Labour and for Brown specifically and today's news of the party coming fifth in the Henley by-election.
For a Labour loyalist like me who has long had a great respect for Brown (and even greatest admiration - with qualifications - for Blair), the last 12 months have seemed like a Greek tragedy. How did someone so talented who wanted the job so much for so long fall from favour so far and so fast?
One cannot blame Brown for the increases in oil and food prices and the slow-down in the economy which are the result of global factors, but of course one can blame him for a string of indecisive positions, most notably the fiasco over the Autumn General Election that never happened (at the time, I blogged about my opposition).
So, should we have seen this coming? Consider these two quotes taken from a decade apart:
"'There is a great streak of self-doubt about Gordon'. Others have made a similar point, on a deep background basis, though, in a man whose springs of action were forged in such a religious setting, it is perhaps not surprising that there should be theological-style doubts from time to time. Set against those misgivings is the enormous intellectual effort he puts into making up his mind before he acts. Brown, his friends and aides agree, takes a very long time to reach decisions - but once there, it is virtually impossible to shift him.""Gordon Brown: The Biography" by Paul Routledge 1998
"The Guardian has spoken to eight people who have either known Brown for up to 20 years or have worked closely with him; they describe a man who works fiendishly long hours and is preoccupied by minutiae. There is anxiety that he is too short-term, worrying about the immediate, rather than concentrating on the strategic. The early morning and late night messages are often brusque though they are certainly keeping people on their toes. His image in Whitehall is undoubtedly being fashioned by the shock many civil servants experience when Brown emails them directly for the first time, expects an instant response and draws them into a vortex of activity that runs into the night and the next day.""Guardian" article, 25 June 2008
"It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in a speech in November. "As one foreign diplomat asked a couple of years ago, 'How has one man in a cave managed to outcommunicate the world's greatest communication society?' "More information in this article from the "Washington Post".
This "Newsweek" article makes some good points about Barack Obama and Europe:
It is my 60th birthday today. I'll be spending the day at a conference on postal services, but this evening my wife Vee will be taking me for dinner at our favourite local restaurant "Incanto" and then on Saturday we will have a gathering of around 50 family and friends to celebrate.
I feel that I have been very lucky with my life as I explain in these notes on "Why It's Fun To Be In One's Sixties In Britain".
Footnote 1: A sign of the electronic times is that, as well as (so far) 27 birthday cards through the post, I've had six e-mails (including one from Afghanistan), five SMS message (including one from Zambia) and nine blog comments (including one from the USA). Thanks to all!
Footnote 2: My wife has bought me for my birthday the two books written by Barack Obama: "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity Of Hope".
Footnote 3: As I mentioned in this posting, the management term that currently most irritates me is "going forward" (what's the alternative?). At the postal conference I attended today, I counted 20 instances of the use of this phrase, no less than 15 of them by Adam Crozier, the Chief Executive of Royal Mail.
In the summer of 1968, I was 20 and becoming very interested in international politics. I followed with interest and excitement the attempts by the Czechoslovak Communists to reform their political structures and I was desperately saddened and angered by the invasion of the Warsaw Pact forces which brutally crushed these efforts at reform. I did not know then that years later I would marry a woman whose father was Czech and visit the country over 20 times.
This evening, I was at the Czech Embassy in London to hear a lecture by Dr Oldrich Tuma entitled "The Prague Spring After 40 Years: Anti-Communist Revolution Or Campaign To Reform Communism?" The answer to the question appears to be: both. The liberalisation process started as the latter but, as people took control of developments away the Communist Party, it became something of the former - which is what scared the Soviet leadership and brought about the occupation.
Before attending the lecture, I had coffee and a chat with my close Slovak friend Ivan Sloboda. I took him to a place he had never seen before: Cafe Diana which is just opposite the Czech and Slovak Embassies and very close to where Princess Diana used to live. Although i am constitutionally a republican (but certainly not politically a Republican!), I find this cafe fascinating because the walls are covered from top to bottom with photographs of Diana.
Brown's analysis of the causes of record oil costs was at odds with the Opec president, Chakib Khelil, who reiterated his view opposing increased production, saying "the price is disconnected from fundamentals" of supply and demand. "We believe that the market is in equilibrium. The price is disconnected from fundamentals. It is not a problem of supply." The Indian finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, agreed, saying producers and consumers should "wrest control" of trading by agreeing to restrict prices."Surely demand and supply cannot explain what has happened over the last 12 months," he said. "Oil prices were $70 a barrel in August 2007 and how is it that they've doubled when there has been no dramatic change in demand?"This is a quote from a news story today on the weekend oil summit in Saudi Arabia.
I have to say that - as will be clear from my posting of two weeks ago - I'm with OPEC rather than Brown on this one. Markets are not always rational.
If the cause is rising demand, then prices will continue to rise because demand will continue to rise but supply will probably only increase marginally (in the short term anyway). If the cause is not rising demand but more probably panic and speculation, then we can expect that sometime in the future prices will fall back, although probably not to the level before the current crisis took hold.
Let's see what happens. Meanwhile consumers around the world are suffering.
NightHawk has been described as a political blog, but I think of it as a personal blog that reflects the fact that politics - both national and international - is a major interest of mine.
There are only four political blogs in the UK that have a really large readership:
One way of looking at these blogs is that they have a strong Right of Centre position; another way of looking at it is that they are essentially critical of the government of the day which - for 11 years now - happens to be Labour. I hope that Labour supporters like me won't wait for the party to lose office before they correct the political bias in UK blogging.
Too much of the blogosphere seems to be oppositional - but blogging should involves positive messages as well as challenging ones.
Ever heard of Cruithne? No - neither had I until this week.
It's an asteroid that was discovered in 1986 that is in orbit around the Sun in 1:1 orbital resonance with that of the Earth. Due to its unusual orbit relative to that of the Earth, it is what is known as a periodic inclusion planetoid and sometimes called "Earth's second moon".
More information here.
Three months ago, Vee and I returned from a wonderful holiday in Cuba [my account here]. On that trip, we befriended two other couples: Jean-Pierre & Annabell Boulé and Bill & Ann Samuel.
Last night, the six of us had a Cuba reunion and timed the event to mark my 60th birthday in a few days time. We ate at a Greek place in central London called "Beotys", looked at Cuba photos. and had great fun
I was given birthdays cards and presents, so thanks Jean-Pierre, Annabell, Bill and Ann.
For a political junkie like me who has been blogging about Barack Obama for over four years (which is before he entered the US Senate) [my first posting here], last night I was close to overdosing. Thanks to my good American friend Eric Lee, i was able to attend the first meeting of the Obama London Group as part of the general election. It was held at the "Duke of York" pub in central London.
It was convened by Karin Robinson, a long-time Obama supporter who runs a very informative blog here.
A campaign briefing was given by Bill Rubin, now an Obama for America staffer. He announced Obama's decision not to take public funding for his presidential campaign, the first candidate to adopt this position since such funds became available. Instead Obama will depend on the 1.5m donors to his campaign.
Stephanie Stewart, Vice-Chair of Democrats Abroad, ran through a quick voter registration training exercise. Since the situation on voter registration is different in the 50 states, it takes a 466 page guide to explain the situation across the country.
Finally Democrats Abroad Chair Bill Barnard gave us a quick overview on the shape of the general election. As a professional historian, he put Obama's achievement as the first black presidential candidate of a major party in an historic context, pointing out that Obama's speech to the Democratic National Convention on 28 August will be made on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. He called the forthcoming ballot "genuinely a realignment election".
My wife and I were not the only British attendees at this meeting because Obama's candidature has caught the imagination of British politicos in way that I've never seen before. There was a young woman in her 20s who'd already spent time over in the States working for Obama in the primaries and she was planning to return to help out in the general election.
What was very clear from this meeting was that Obama has excited and inspired people in a way that is drawing thousands into an immense grassroots campaign supported by a massive number who have donated funds. In addition, the professionalism of the campaign organisation - based overwhelmingly on volunteers - is stunning and enabling a genuine 50-state effort to be mounted.
It's hard for me to believe, but next week I'll be 60. I know - I look so young and act even younger ;-)
The actual day is Wednesday 25 June and the main celebration will be on Saturday 28 June, but this event is so special that there are going to be celebrations over a 10-day period starting today.
My Postwatch London colleagues took me out for a most enjoyable Chinese lunch at Kym's. Thanks Terry, Sam, Sarah and Malcolm.
I've just returned from an overnight visit to Nottingham to participate in a forum organised by the telecommunications trade union Connect. Together with my good friend and Internet guru Eric Lee, I spoke at workshops yesterday afternoon and this morning on e-campaigning.
I addressed e-campaigning generally and used three web sites as case studies:
Eric spoke specifically about e-campaigning by trade unions and the web site LabourStart.
You'll find an excellent and very current example of a trade union e-campaign here.
I'd like you to send the Trades Union Congress (TUC) a photo of yourself.
It is wanted because two leaders of the Zimbabwean unions - Wellington Chibebe and Lovemore Matombo, President and General Secretary respectively of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) - were arrested for talking about the political situation in Zimbabwe on May Day and are going to be tried for 'spreading falsehoods prejudicial to the state' this coming Monday.
The idea is to shut them up over the course of the re-run elections. They are out on bail, but are prevented from appearing in public or making public statements, in contravention of their human rights, and they're being very brave in going voluntarily into court next week even though they are no strangers to being really badly beaten up in police custody.
There are demos being called now in a number of countries (including the UK) on Monday, and to help get some more attention to their case, the TUC is trying to make a giant photo mosaic portrait of them, made up of supporters' photos from all around the world. At least 1,700 photos are needed.
Your photo would end up 1 inch square on a big mosaic at the London demo, and the TUC w'll be using the image for as much media and publicity as they can get with it. I've submitted my photo; will you please send yours?
Send the photo of yourself to zim@tuc.org.uk or MMS it to 07546 229055. Many thanks for helping!
More information here.
Footnote (26/7/08): The mosaic was completed - see here.
American futurist Raymond Kurzweil certainly thinks so - as explained in this article from the "New York Times".
Key to understanding his optimism is appreciating that science grows not linearly but exponentially and acknowledging what Kurzweil calls the Law of Accelerating Returns:
“Scientists imagine they’ll keep working at the present pace. They make linear extrapolations from the past. When it took years to sequence the first 1 percent of the human genome, they worried they’d never finish, but they were right on schedule for an exponential curve. If you reach 1 percent and keep doubling your growth every year, you’ll hit 100 percent in just seven years.”
"If days of the week were wine gums, Monday would be the green one."Giles Morris offers some advice on how to get through Monday.
'Mr. Obama is hardly alone in making use of the Web (remember Howard Dean in 2004). What sets him apart is his openness to contributions from those working outside the campaign organization. As he described it to a Time magazine reporter last week, “We just had some incredibly creative young people who got involved and what I think we did well was give them a lot of latitude to experiment and try new things and to put some serious resources into it.”'Quote from a piece in the "New York Times" which explains how Obama's campaign has made better use of the Internet than any other.
In the UK, this Sunday is Father's Day (I know that Father's Day and Mother's Day are celebrated on different days around the world), so I want to wish a good day to all fathers like me. I had a card and a call from my son Richard and, in remembrance of all the super-hero movies we saw together, I include this short video clip from YouTube.
Since I went on holiday to Cuba [my acccount here], I've been more than usually interested in all things Cuban. So I recently had a great night at a performance by the Buena Vista Social Club [my blog posting here].
Last night, together with my wife Vee and brother-in-law Derek, I attended a show of Cuban dance called "Havana Rakatan" at the Peacock Theatre in central London. The show involves a 15-strong troupe of dancers called Ballet Rakatan supported by an eight-strong Cuban son band called Turquino.
The show is a walk through the history of dance styles and influences on the island from colonial times to modern day and it is exciting, exhilerating and exuberant - concluding with dancing in the aisles. The "Indepedent" newspaper had an enthusiastic review.
Whenever the Royal Air Force does a fly past over central London, I try to catch it at home since we live almost due west of the city centre and usually catch such fly pasts before the aircraft disperse.
Today it was the Queen's official birthday and so, after the ceremony of the Trooping of the Colour, there was a fly past. As this is the 90th year of the RAF, there was an unusually large formation totalling 55 aircraft spread over 20 miles of sky.
At the moment, we're having repair work done on our roof and so we have scaffolding in place. This enabled us to climb out of the loft window, stand on the scaffolding, and have particularly good views of the passing formations. You can see the thrilling sight that we saw in this seven-minute video clip.
Roy Greenslade thinks so - as he explains here - and it's hard to disagree with him.
First, we have the absurdity of a Labour Government making an outrageous attack on our civil liberties by forcing through Parliament provision for detention without charge for up to 42 days by bullying its MPs and even bribing some of them and the Democratic Unionist Party. This is in spite of the fact that the measure is not necessary according to many knowledgeable observers; it won't get through the House of Lords; and, if somehow it did, it would probably be challenged in the courts; and, if it did manage to be implemented, it would very rarely be used and, given all the concessions, its use would have no real effect.
You would think that Gordon Brown has enough problems at the moment. So why is he doing this? Does he want to look as tough as Tony Blair? Does he want to make the Conservative Party look weak on terrorism? Both would be ignoble motives.
Then, we have the farce of the Shadow Home Secretary resigning from Parliament to the fury of his leader and his colleagues because he wants to fight a by-election on a single issue - very, very hard to guarantee - on a matter on which his party in Parliament is in agreement with him but on which many Conservative votes probably disagree with him. Only to find that neither Labour nor Lib Dems intend to co-operate with this charade by fielding a candidate but a Right-wing hack is going to enter the fray with the support and funding of no less a figure than Rupert Murdoch.
All that will happen is that the public purse will fund a totally unnecessary by-election in which there will no serious opposition and a very poor turnout. Davies will destroy his career, the Conservative Party will look divided and stupid, and Gordon Brown will be grateful for some diversion from his multiple troubles.
Al-Qaeda leaders must be laughing all the way to their caves in Waziristan.
If it wasn't for the Irish blowing the new EU Treaty out of the water to the chagrin of 26 other Member States, we might look the nuttiest nation in Europe just now.
"I blog because I find it a form of community and am obsessed with daily writing. It helps me separate what is important, versus the same old stuff I do every day. I actually learn more about the world through the research I do in order to post a blog entry. Also, down deep, part of me doesn't believe I actually have a life. I prove to myself with a blog that I do indeed have a life - a rich and full one."This quote - from a 70-year old female blogger in the USA - captures some of the reason why i blog. It comes from an article about older women who blog written by Natalie d'Arbeloff who blogs here.
Between 1968 and 1972, nine American spacecraft voyaged to the moon and 12 American men walked on its surface, the first (and last) human beings to ever leave this planet and land on another celestial body. This incredible story is told in a remarkable documentary "In The Shadow Of The Moon" which was released last year but I've only seen this week [my review here].
I was 21 when I watched live television coverage of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. When the last such moon walk took place in 1972, I never imagined that the following 36 years would see the surface of the moon untouched by man. This documentary captures a very special time.
Five outrageous and untrue smears about Barack Obama are demolished on this new web site.
The Chinese began printing 600 years before Johannes Gutenberg introduced the technique in Germany. They built the first chain drive 700 years before the Europeans. And they made use of a magnetic compass at least a century before the first reference to it appeared elsewhere. So why, in the middle of the 15th century, did this advanced civilisation suddenly cease its spectacular progress?
A Cambridge academic called Joseph Needham (1900-1995) contributed so much to the study of science in China's Middle Kingdom that the issue is the known as "the Needham question". According to a recent article in "The Economist":
"Needham never fully worked out why China’s inventiveness dried up. Other academics have made their own suggestions: the stultifying pursuit of bureaucratic rank in the Middle Kingdom and the absence of a mercantile class to foster competition and self-improvement; the sheer size of China compared with the smaller states of Europe whose fierce rivalries fostered technological competition; its totalitarianism."I've been to China twice [my account here] and have some dear Chinese friends, so this is a question that I have certainly pondered. My own view is that it is to do with the Chinese way of thinking which has been excessively deferential to authority and reluctant to challenge conventional wisdom.
Europe was home to the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution. The Chinese had none of these - but they're catching up incredibly fast.
I regularly receive e-mails circulating a warning - usually about some health or safety situation - and urging me to pass on the message to all my friends. From experience, I know that virtually all of these e-mails are hoaxes, although the sender does not realise this and is acting with the best of intentions.
How do I know that they are hoaxes? The content - often improbable - and the style - usually overly dramatic - frequently make this obvious to someone with a questioning mind.
But I often check them out on Snopers.com or Google by simply cutting and pasting into the search box the title of the e-mail or a key bit of text. I do this because I'm fascinating by how the e-mail originated and what basis, if any, the advice or warning has. It tells us a lot about human nature and the role of the Net.
I was reminded of these hoax e-mails today by this article which makes the interesting point that many of these e-mails are targeted at women. Why is this? Because women are vulnerable, they are caring, and (sadly) they are often gullible.
There's an amusing article in one of the "Guardian" supplements today about the terrible habit of management-speak which seems to afflict so many people - especially those in senior positions - at work.
Currently the phrase which causes me most anguish is "going forward". I was at a conference today and decided to note the numbers of times that the phrase was used. It was five - which could have been worse.
I find "going forward" an utterly redundant phrase. Invariably the subject of the sentence cannot be a a matter for the past or the present, so it must be something for the future. If there is any doubt, the use of a verb in the future tense covers it.
What's the management-speak that most annoys you?
If I was an al-Qaeda leader, my worst nightmare would be something called the MQ-9 Reaper.
The U.S. Air Force proposed the MQ-9 system in response to the Department of Defense request for global war on terrorism initiatives. It is larger and more powerful than the MQ-1 Predator and is designed to go after time-sensitive targets with persistence and precision and destroy or disable those targets.
The "M" is the Department of Defense designation for multi-role and "Q" means unmanned aircraft system. The "9" refers to the series of purpose-built remotely piloted aircraft systems.
You can read the technical specifications here.
The name chosen for the MQ-9 inevitably reminds me of the Hawker Hurricane IIC flown by my wife's father in 1942. At the height of his success, he had an emblem painted on the starboard side of his aircraft. It depicted a scythe in yellow and across it a banner in red carrying the name 'Night Reaper'
You can read more information on that particular aircraft here.
Last night, I went to see a film - "Mongol" [my review here] - at a cinema which could be the oldest in Britain.
The Phoenix cinema in north London first opened in 1910 as "The East Finchley Picturedrome", offering 'the world's finest picture plays'. It has been open as a cinema since and is believed to be the oldest purpose-built continuously serving cinema in the UK - it has never been a bingo hall, snooker hall or dark even during two World Wars.
It was one of the first cinemas in London to introduce sound films in 1929 when it was known as the "Coliseum". In the early 1970s, it was known as the "Rex" and I lived literally round the corner in Fairlawn Avenue.
The BBC web site has a short piece which manages to suggest no less than seven reasons:
So, now that at last we are sure who the Democratic and Republican candidates are, who will Barack Obama and John McCain choose for their running mates?
A review of eight possibilities for the Democrats is here and a look at five possibilities for the Republicans is here.
All I know for sure is that Obama must not choose Clinton.
If you have a conflict situation in your life (or think that you might do), you could check out this advice or - better still go - on this course.
This is the name for a new web site created by the Financial Services Authority to offer advice to young adults on financial matters. As a consumer advocate, I welcome efforts by regulators to give practical advice to consumers.
It's taken five months hard campaigning and voting in all 50 states - not to mention 40 postings on this blog - but finally the longest and closest and most expensive primary campaign in US history has resulted in the adoption of the first ever African-American as the candidate of a major party.
It is an outstanding achievement by Barack Obama that very few thought possible when he first announced his intention to run for the White House. But Hillary Clinton has been a formidable and tenacious opponent and, by running so hard and so long, she's done damage to Obama's chances in the general election as he has limped rather than stormed across the finishing post.
What now? Well, Michael Tomasky has suggested five things that Obama needs to do. I agree with Tomasky that one of these is to get the Clintons on board but that Hillary will not be the Obama's running mate.
Today I gave my first speech in my new capacity of Board member of the New National Consumer Council. The event was an conference organised by the Office of Fair Trading to mark the fifth anniversary of the coming into force of the Enterprise Act 2002.
I've reproduced below the text of the remarks I prepared (not all of which was actually delivered because of the tight scheduling).
OFT conference on market studies:
Finding and fixing problem markets
TUC Conference Centre – 4th June 2008
The UK regime – rationale and fit with competition policy: A consumer perspective
Roger Darlington
Setting the scene
These are challenging times for many UK consumers: a credit crunch, stagnating house prices, soaring oil prices, rising food prices, closing post offices and general economic instability and uncertainty.
On the other hand, these are exciting times for those of us working in consumer policy because of a major shift in British society. It used to be said that people in this country just meekly accepted mediocre service and poor quality products. Not any more.
We have far more active consumers, who are willing to throw their weight around when they need to. They are happy to work with smart businesses to help them improve and innovate They will reward the good guys through their spending as well as penalising the bad guys through their switching.
In this respect, I commend to you an excellent recent report on switching behaviour from the Scottish Consumer Council entitled “Making Markets Work For Consumers”.
Now digital connectivity has increased the speed with which businesses need to respond to consumer preferences. New technologies, global access to capital, and cross-border market integration help propel companies from nowhere to very large-scale with volcanic force. A UK example is Vodafone.
But the same is true for value destruction. It used to take years of sustained consumer resentment and dissatisfaction to finish a business. Now it can be done far more rapidly. Numerous websites and groups now allow consumers to exchange stories, offer support and advice, and act in unison to challenge vested interests. Examples include:
Yet too many businesses still think the only way to succeed is to mislead, to confuse, and to hide behind artificial protection. Far from embracing consumer power, they are determined to squash it. The top five complaints of the National Consumer Council are:
Connecting consumer and competition policy
The UK has made significant advances in consumer and competition policy. I particularly welcome the introduction last month of the duty ‘not to trade unfairly’ – a completely new approach to consumer policy. A raft of detailed rules have been swept away, and businesses will be required to take responsibility for behaving properly.
We in the consumer movement do have concerns about some aspects of the way the duty has been implemented and the general lack of consumer and business education about it. Nevertheless it’s very good news.
A 2006 report published by the National Consumer Council entitled “Imperfect Markets” looked at how the UK should ensure that it does not fall short of the best policy regimes in an increasingly competitive global economy. When looking at the way problem markets are being tackled, the report identified two major concerns.
First, the lack of rigour and balance in consideration of what tools work for what markets and in what circumstances. Policy tools used by regulators are not always best suited to the problems they are trying to fix. This is particularly true when the market failure is complex.
It needs to recognised that not regulating can be costly too. While regulation does involve costs, if the various regulatory options are going to be assessed objectively and accurately, it is important to know the costs and benefits of not regulating and compare the alternatives in that context.
Self regulation is another way in which regulators attempt to mitigate the risks of regulation, but it has a chequered history.
For six years, I was the first independent Chairman of the Internet Watch Foundation which combats child abuse images on the Net. The IWF is an excellent example of self-regulation working well. But there are other examples – I think of the Press Complaints Commission – which are fair less impressive.
Second, competition policy has focused too heavily on the supply-side of the market. Competition policy has always been slow to embrace behavioural economics, which seems illogical when we consider that consumer behaviour is not always utilitarian and consumers are not homogenous beings. When examining a market, and developing remedies to fix any problems, this cannot be ignored.
The OFT has started work on how this approach can be used in future market studies through its Behavioural Economics project team. This is a welcome step forward, but it needs to be an integral part of a regulator’s approach to investigating markets. It must not be seen as just another box to tick.
I have sat on the Ofcom Consumer Panel since its creation over four years ago. Initially Ofcom was excessively focused on the supply side of the market and the restructuring of BT; in the last couple of years though, it has created an effective Consumer Policy team, adopted a Consumer Interest Toolkit devised by the Panel, and even recently embraced behavioural economics.
Roles and relationships of a regulator
One of the key challenges for bodies like the OFT is to get the right relationship with business. In the case of the OFT, this is complicated by the range of responsibilities that it has:
One recent success has been the car-servicing industry’s application. This is a significant milestone for the industry and for CCAS itself, but it comes 23 years after the OFT first identified consumer detriment.
New NCC
I conclude with a few words on the changing scene of the consumer organisation world.
In January, the New National Consumer Council came into existence with the appointment of a Board on which I sit. We have an impressive group of Board members led by our Chairman Lord Whitty; we have an outstanding Chief Executive in Ed Mayo; we have a very able Start-Up Team working hard to set up the new organisation; and over the summer we will be putting together appropriate policy teams and staffing structures.
Then, on 1 October, the New National Consumer Council - we will be changing this name - takes over from three current consumer groups: the existing National Consumer Council, energywatch and Postwatch (on which I sit).
The existing bodies have achieved much over their lives, but I do think this is a real opportunity to create an even more powerful advocate for consumers, able to stand up stongly to vested interests and forceably tackle detriment right across the economy.
As a member of the Board of the new organisation, I would emphasise how committed we are to building on the work of the three predecessor bodies in identifying failing markets and working with the OFT, the Competition Commission, sectoral regulators, and indeed businesses themselves to improve things for consumers.
This is a fundamental part of the new organisation’s role, and we have a number of statutory powers to help us do it. We will I am sure be seeking early super complainant status, for example. This may in turn lead to market studies – although sometimes the need will be for firm and decisive action, not merely further detailed investigation.
We will shortly be consulting on a Forward Work Plan for our first 18 months and we look forward to working with you all in the months and years to come. Together we can and will win a better deal for consumers.
On the day that sees the opening in Rome of a special summit organised by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), some compelling facts on food.
This lunchtime, I was at the Treasury - at the invitation of my half-brother who is an official there - to hear a lecture by Professor Frank Trentmann. He was speaking about his latest book which is called "Free Trade Nation: Consumption, Civil Society and Commerce in Modern Britain".
The Treasury officials there seemed to love it - but I had no idea what the relevance was today's economic challenges. It was one of those events where I understood each word; I just couldn't make much sense of the sentences that they made up. Do you ever attend meetings like that?
This is the title of a forthcoming book and a web site to promote discussion on its themes. The book is by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson and the gods are globalisation, communication, liberalisation, privatisation, competition, financialisation, speculation, recklessness, greed, arrogance, oligarchy and excess.
The central argument of the book is that the world's bankers have delivered chaos, debt and uncertainty - and then blamed the feeble governments that surrendered control of the global economy to them. At a time of credit crunch, falling house prices, soaring oil prices, rising food prices and economic instability, this sounds like a topical work.
A first extract from the book here.
An American contact has drawn my attention this article which was recently in the "Washington Post" and elsewhere.
The piece makes comparisons between the presidential candidacy of Jimmy Carter in 1976 and that of Barack Obama in 2008. It makes the point that both were complete outsiders when they started their presidential bids and wonders whether Obama - if he wins the Democratic candidacy and then the presidency - will suffer the same fate as Carter in the White House who had to battle against the party establishment with very little support in the Congress.
The parallels are interesting, but I believe that an Obama presidency - if the right aides were appointed in the West Wing - would fare much better with Congress, partly because Obama has at least been a one-term senator (whereas Carter had no Washington experience) and partly because Obama has some heavyweight support on The Hill (not least the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi).
However, my contact makes another comparison - that between the economic situations in 1977 and 2009 - and points out: "I began to imagine a parallel between the present time and that of the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. That event was the prelude to a severe recession, followed by double-digit inflation. It seemed that Obama might have misfortunes similar to those of President Carter, who presided over a worsening economic situation, caused by the financial decisions of his predecessors, Johnson and Nixon, and without much support from the Congressional representatives of his own party."
Whoever wins the presidency is going to face a really tough economic situation.
