Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Methodology Is Important

Monday, December 21st, 2009

I need to make an admission: I’m not really THAT bothered about climate change. There, I’ve said it. Berate me as much as you like. I know I should care, but I just don’t. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t affect me enough. In fact, that’s exactly what it is. But anyway, I’m a leftie who doesn’t really care about climate change.

That said, knowing I really should care, it’s probably about time I had a good look for myself. Conveniently, the Met Office have released raw data from their weather stations. A perfect opportunity to have a look for myself. More on that later.

However, other people have also had a look. Iain Dale has posted up some findings found by a reader of Iain Dale’s Diary which shows that Oxford is getting cooler. The methodology? To compare the highest temperature recorded in set time periods and compare them. The result? Well, to be honest, the commentary is rather garbled and unclear. It seems to suggest that Oxford is cooler now than in 1938, but that it was warmer last year. So, on balance, it would seem to argue there’s been little difference in temperature over the last 70 years – but that’s just a guess. Like I said, it’s pretty hard to work out exactly what the argument is.

There is one major problem with this method – there is no allowance for extreme values. Extreme values skew data. You can prove anything with them – especially when looking at a complicated issue like climate.

So, here is an alternative analysis of the raw data from the Oxford weather station. It is by no means perfect. It has been done very quickly. I have not subjected it to complicated scientific tests. But it has a method. Which is as follows:

I have taken the last decade (the Noughties) and taken the maximum temperature in June of every year in that decade. I would take the mean temperature, but that data is not available. I have then totalled those ten numbers (this year’s is still provisional, but is unlikely to change significantly) and divided them by ten. This gives us – wait for it – a mean maximum temperature. So, if you take the last ten years, you have an average of what that would be in any given year. Not a fantastic measurement, I accept, but it’s the best I can do with the data available. I have then repeated the process for the first decade of the 20th Century. I have picked these BEFORE looking at the data, so you can’t say I’ve taken convenient data. I have taken it randomly. I have then taken an intermediate value between the two – the 1950s.

On the other end of the scale, I have taken the lowest recorded temperature in each December and applied the same method to achieve a mean minimum temperature. This should provide a (superficial) indication of whether winters and/or summers have got warmer over the last century. By balancing the figures over a decade each time, extraneous values in either direction should have minimal effect. So, for anyone still reading, here are the figures:

Table 1.1 – Absolute Temperatures.

1900s

1950s

2000s
Absolute Minimum Temperature

0.6

-0.7

0.2
Absolute Maximum Temperature

24.3

23.9

27.1

Table 1.2 – Mean Temperatures

1900s

1950s

2000s
Mean Minimum Temperature

2.09

2.45

2.98
Mean Maximum Temperature

21.83

21.59

22.54

So, what does this show? Firstly, comparing the 1900s with the 2000s shows a clear rise in the mean maximum and minimum temperatures. The 2000s, according to this (very loose) data, were warmer. However, the lower minimum temperature in the 2000s suggests there could potentially be more fluctuation in temperature now than 100 years ago. Or it could be an anomaly.

Interestingly, the 1950s featured cooler absolute values for both June and December, the mean temperature in June was the coolest of the three, and the mean for December is halfway between the two.

Verdict: Further investigation required into the 1950s. Investigate possible reasons for anomalies. Clear 2000s clearly warmer than 1900s according to this data. Further comparison of the other decades in between needed to verify this data is not an anomaly itself.

Most of all, though, we need much more detailed data – day by day data is required much more than month by month if any meaningful data is to be extracted from this exercise.

Feel free to comment – healthy (and polite) debate welcomed, but leave essays for your own sites, please. I have no agenda. I just like looking at numbers. Thanks for reading.

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Let’s Raise The Personal Tax Allowance

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

We are currently going through the annual Party Conference season, with the Liberal Deomcrats currently finishing their conference. Whilst I personally find much of the conference season quite dull, it is a good time to see some of the policy suggestions eminating from the grassroots and seeing how much traction they gain.

I personally have been taken by a suggestion that in itself is nothing new – in fact, it has been floated around in a number of places before now – but which seems very practical and universally beneficial given the current economic situation. The proposal? To raise the Personal Tax Allowance to £10,000.

Currently, the Personal Tax Allowance for 2009-10 sits at £6,475. People do not pay income tax unless they earn over this amount in the financial year. Once they hit this marker, they start paying the basic rate of tax which, since the abolition of the 10p tax rate, sits at 20%. By raising the Personal Tax Allowance, anyone who earns more than £6,475 would be better off. Anyone earning over £10,000 a year would be, according to my calculations, £705 better off through such a tax cut.

Now, I know what some people are thinking – how would it be funded? Well, according to the Office of National Statistics, there are 28,891,000 people in employment in the United Kingdom at the moment. Assuming everyone benefits from this, and nothing else is put in place to offset this tax cut, the cost, according to my calculations, would be £20.38 billion. So, scrap Trident and I.D. cards and you go quite some way towards paying for such a tax cut. Trident has been estimated as costing anything up to £120 billion to replace over a 30-year period, thus costing up to £4 billion a year. I.D. cards themselves have been estimated to cost £18 billion, and so scrapping these two schemes would save a good deal of the money required to make such a cut work.

In order to make this work, you would, in all likelihood, need to raise taxes somewhere else. One option would be to lower the Higher Rate of tax slightly in order to re-coup the money. By reducing the Higher Rate of tax from £37,400 to £35,750, you would negate much of the impact of the tax cut on higher earners, but at the same time, avoid raising the level of income tax paid by higher earners (and also minimising the cost to the Treasury). Thus, everyone would experience a tax cut, but it would be targeted specifically at those people earning less than £35,750, and would represent a significant tax break to the very lowest earners.

I would argue this to be of particular importance given the current economic climate. Why? Because work doesn’t always pay. We hear policy after policy about taking benefits away from the unemployed, but little about truly making work pay. But it is in our interests to make work pay now. The more people we have working, the less people we have on benefits, the we pay out, the more tax we collect, the more we have to spend on real public services when money is exceptionally tight. That can’t be mad. Moreover, we provide an incentive to work. Can you bloame people on piss-poor wages for not working when working leaves them with very little extra in their pockets? I don’t. But give them a higher Personal Tax Allowance, show them they will have more money in their pockets – £60 per month – and maybe it will provide that little incentive. £13 a week doesn’t sound like much, but £705 a year soon adds up.

Footnote: I am not a tax expert, but I do have basic maths skills. My calculations make no account for Tax Credits, as I just don’t understand them well enough. But you get the idea. Let the tax boffins work out the absolute finer details of the exact numbers – they can’t be too far off.

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Why The BBC’s BNP Policy Is The Right One

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

The BBC have, understandably, caused quite a stir in the past few days with their announcement that the BNP may be invited to field a guest on Question Time.

The controversy is between those people who take the view that the BNP should not be allowed a voice and those who believe they should. Funnily enough, both arguments are (apparently) arguments built up from the principle of free speech.

On the one hand, you have the people who argue that whilst the BNP is – as some would put it – a scar on our country’s liberal ideals, they should not be denied a platform to speak, but instead should be encouraged to share the same platform as the mainstream parties and defeated by reason as their policies are exposed and unravelled.

On the other hand, there are those who argue that the BNP is a revolting party and so shouldn’t be given the light of day.

I have to say, I have never agreed with the latter argument – although I admit am in the minority when it comes to those on my side of the political spectrum – why does that not surprise me?  I am no fan of the BNP, let’s be clear about that. I don’t agree with very much of their policy platform. Their approach to immigration goes against the entire history of the British Isles and immigration. However, the BNP is not a banned party, they have been democratically elected and thus constitute a legitimate political voice, and, like it or not, they should be represented as such.

It really is as simple as that, no matter how deeply and personally uncomfortable that is. Yes, they may not allow people who are not “ethnically British” to join their party, and that may rest uncomfortably with people, but as it stands, such a policy is not against the law. Furthermore, no matter how much I dislike that policy, it should not be outlawed either, for that would set a dangerous precedent; for we allow black-only membership or certain organisations, we allow women-only membership of others and we allow trade-only membership of yet more. If you say that is is not acceptable to have white-only membership of a particular organisation, then where do you draw the boundaries? What do you do with the National Black Police Association? Are they racist? No-one would call that unfair. What do you do with the Women’s Institute? Is that sexist, and therefore unacceptable? Few would seriously argue that. Should churches allow non-Christians as members? It defeats the point of such an organisation or community!

I can imagine the counter-argument – these are minority organisations. However, that in itself is not a legitimate reason to disallow an organisation. All organisations have a purpose. All groups, whether we agree with them or not, have their own aims. Quite often, completely open membership is not appropriate. With community organisations, we do not have a problem with requirements for membership.

So, the question is, should it be any different for political entities? I can see that many would argue that it should – after all elected politicians are there to represent the people – and that is a fair point.

I, however, do not agree that it should be any different. Labour MP’s have to represent Conservative-voting constituents, and they manage to represent those people even though they will not always agree with their constituents. But, as a representative, you don’t need to. Your legitimacy does not derive from agreeing with everyone, but from the fact that of all the candidates who stood, you won the most votes. At this point, you have more legitimacy than any of the other candidates. That is the nature of our voting system.

That, as far as I am concerned, is a true “progressive” view. I can disagree, but still allow. I can put faith in the people to decide for themselves. I have faith in the ability of people to make up their own minds, faith in the victory of sound reasoning. Thus, as long as political entities work within the constraints of the law as it stands, they should be allowed the right to be heard on an equal platform to others. For anything that is legal under the law should be treated in other instances in the law as value-neutral. Whatever we think. Thus, when the BBC is committed to unbiased coverage, then the BNP should, as a legitimately elected party, be entitled to their moment in the spotlight to be scrutinised.

Let them have it. Let them lay their platform down. Then see how long they last.

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