Newtonian Politics
Isaac Newton was a great man of many facets. To me though as an Control Engineer, his most important work is his three laws of motion.
The First Law states that every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless acted on by an external force.
In real life it is Newton’s version of the old maxim – If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
The Second Law states that the rate of change of mass times velocity in a body is proportional to the force applied.
Basically, in real life this means that the harder you push something the more it moves the way you want it to.
The Third Law states every action on a body has an equal and opposite reaction.
Newton wrote his laws as they applied to mechanical systems, but they also can be applied to people systems in a philosophical way.
If you look at the British economy for the last fifty years, two of the worst times were the Oil Crisis of 1973 and the Banking Crisis of 2008. Massive external forces distorted a British economic system, that was sitting reasonably happily in a state of rest as defined by the First Law. The application of the external force was a superb example of Newton’s Second Law, which caused the economy to move fast in the wrong direction.
In recent years too, the attacks of September 11th, 2001, the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 and the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011
In some cases the reaction of politicians the world over to these and other crises only made things worse. If we take September 11th, the United States had the moral high-ground after the atrocities and could have applied sensible policies to make sure that such attacks never happened again. Instead they illustrated Newton’s Third Law brilliantly, by in revenge invading Afghanistan and Iraq, which of course provoked the opposite reaction of Islamic terrorism we now see all over the world. If you poke a hornets nest, you get stung. Or in the case of the September 11th attacks, the rest of the world does.
So how do Newton’s Laws affect British politics and in particular this coming election?
I’ll use two simple examples from London.
The London Fire Brigade has closed ten fire stations in order to save money to help the city recover from the recession of 2008. There have been protests and local objections, but there has not been one story in the past year, of destruction or even death caused by the cuts.
Transport for London over the last couple of years, have swiftly moved totally away from cash-based ticketing to one that relies on contactless cards of one sort or another with the closure of lots of ticket offices. Politicians protested loudly at the announcement but there have not been any stories since about passengers protesting because they couldn’t get home or something similar. In fact the only comment, I’ve had from staff, is one off-duty bus driver, who said he’s convinced attacks on staff have reduced significantly.
I think that Londoners, staff and eventually politicians have realised that although the changes are massive, most have only been affected in a small way, so their reaction to the changes has been proportionately small. Probably the worst affected group are firemen, who’ve been made redundant and I suspect, that London’s booming economy has allowed those who need a new job to get one, as protests have been surprising by their absence.
I think that these two examples illustrate a facet of the British people. We may moan a bit about something we don’t like, but when the new system beds in and it doesn’t effect us too much, we accept it as a sensible policy. On the other hand, if something is manifestly wrong, like the Second Gulf War, we protest until the end.
People may complain about the parties being too similar, but as most politicians are decent reasonable people, who see the bigger picture, the middle way is often chosen by everybody.
In this current election there has been a defining theme, that could determine who is the next Prime Minister.
In the seven-party television debate, Nicola Sturgeon, showed the English a face of Scots, that they don’t like. All of the thoughts from north of the border is worrying the English that any Labour dog, will be wagged by a Scottish Nationalist tail. So will this cause a drop in Labour’s vote in England?
The poll today in The Sunday Times shows that Tory support is hardening. So has Newton’s Third Law taken control?
If Labour is to get the most seats they have got to convince a large number of house-owning working middle-class voters to switch allegiance.
But will these floating votes go for a party that is saying it will use their ISAs and other measures to fund and ease more house building, which will depress the value of their own properties?
Labour policy makers obviously don’t know that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, as many of their policies, as do those of UKIP and the Nationalists, only appeal to a very committed majority. Tony Blair’s strength in the polls, was that he mobilised the non-Labour voters to vote for Nulabor.
David Cameron on the other hand, generally kept out of the squabbles in the seven-party debate, which was a classic stance to give a message compatible with Newton’s First Law.
It is an interesting problem, which will only be solved in the very British way at the ballot box in a few weeks time.
You Can Always Rely On Boris For a Good Quote
This article in The Guardian has this quote from Boris Johnson.
Vote Tory and get broadband. Vote Ukip and get Miliband!
Is there another UK politician, who is as good with words as Boris?
Dinner In The Gherkin
I went to a dinner last night at the top of the Gherkin, that was organised by an event club to which I belong.
The dinner itself was pretty good and the views were superb.
The View From The Gherkin At Night
But the club has been recently taken over and the new organiser was showing all the skills that Ed Miliband has shown with the Scottish Labour Party.
I doubt I shall be going to any of their events again.
Miliband Forgets The Deficit
I suppose strictly speaking, it’s not his deficit, as it was stared by Blair/Brown, but I see Miliband’s omission of the deficit in his conference speech rather worrying.
I certainly wouldn’t vote for any politician, who omits to tell the full picture.
Miliband is certainly second-rate even compared to Gordon Brown, as he has shown in the last few weeks over the \scottish Referendum.
Run Miliband Run
This little snippet is on the BBC web page that follows the Scottish Referendum.
Ed Miliband will be speaking on The Andrew Marr Show from the Labour party conference in Manchester. However, the BBC’s political editor in the South of England, Peter Henley, is reporting that the Labour leader has cancelled other BBC interviews.
Peter Henley: Ed Miliband has pulled out of planned BBC interviews tomorrow. They’ve cancelled BBC English Regions, Scotland, NI & Wales.
It looks like he’s running scared. Perhaps, a detailed analysis of who voted Yes and No in the Referendum, has revealed that after next year’s General Election, Labour’s core vote in Scotland, that so annoys the English (I can’t comment about the Welsh and Northern Irish!), will be very much reduced!
Are Politicians Stupid?
This report on the BBC web site, shows how the three major party leaders were photographed with a special World Cup promotion edition of The Sun.
The Sun is noted for various things, but faithful support for politicians isn’t probably one of them.
So why did the npoliticians ever let the photos be published?
Clegg and Cameron’s supporters didn’t seem to mind too much, but Labour Party supporters and especially those from Liverpool, are giving Milliband a hard time.
Are The Consumers Controlling The Energy Prices?
This article from Real Business entitled ‘Big 6’ Energy Companies To Lose Dominance in 2019 caught my eye. Here’s the first paragraph.
The UK’s ‘big six’ energy companies are losing customers to their smaller rivals at such a rate that they will control less than 50 per cent of the residential market in 2019, according to UKPower.co.uk.
So perhaps savvy comsumers and the Internet are actually in control these days?
I do wonder whether Miliband’s statement that he would freeze energy companies has actually got the Great British Public to think deeply about their energy use and they have seen they can save money by switching to a smaller supplier.
And from my own experience, once you’ve switched once, you realise that it’s not a painful process, so if it doesn’t work out, switching again will not be a problem.
Are Things Getting Better?
There has been a lot of discussion about whether things are getting better, with the government that things are on the up and Milliband saying they’re not. This article gives both views, with David Cameron being quoted in this way.
Most British workers have seen their take-home pay rise in real terms in the past year, the government claims.
It has produced figures showing all except the richest 10% saw their take-home wages rise by at least 2.5% once tax cuts were taken into account.
The article says this about Ed Milliband.
Labour leader Ed Miliband said the figures were “dodgy” and ministers were out of touch with people’s lives.
I’m not going to take sides, but as I travel around the country, I see many things.
If I look at my situation, I think it has got marginally better compared to what it was twelve months ago.
I’m getting a slightly higher rate on my savings in Zopa, my energy is slightly cheaper since I moved my energy supplier to Ovo and running my household seems to be cheaper, as I’ve organised myself better. The latter is not down to the economy, but partly due to individuals and companies, launching new products and services.
One thing that hasn’t hit me, is the cost of motoring! Because I don’t!
I’ve just had February’s edition of Modern Railways and as in the last few months, there are quite a few articles about new stations and lines. There’s also been a few examples of new and refurbished trains being built or modified in the UK. But go to places like Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester and the transport infrastructure is much better than it was three or four years ago. Other places like Blackburn have got new stations. And there are quite a few new British-built buses too.
If the experience of the introduction into North London of the Overground, is anything to go by, where people have told me it has allowed them to get to new or better jobs, this new transport infrastructure can only be a good thing.
But if I go to places outside of London, it all seems much better. Surprisingly, there are quite a few bright, new shopping centres.
But then some politicians don’t want to be positive!
Robert Peston On Milliband’s Plan For The Banks
Now that Milliband has actually spoken it is interesting to see what heavyweight commentators are saying. The speech is reported here on the BBC and it also contains these comments from Robert Peston on what would happen if banks were limited as to market share.
Bankers have said to me this would lead to what they call a perverse outcome, that as they approached the maximum size they would dump customers they deemed low quality or loss-making.
It is unclear whether these customers would be able to bank elsewhere.
I wonder how many banks would want me as a customer, given that all I want is a money transfer company. And I don’t buy any other services from my bank, like insurance.
And I don’t see why I should pay for my banking!
Why Milliband’s Bank Plan Won’t Work
Ed Milliband’s plan to cut the Big Banks down to size described here, may be admirable, but it won’t work!
In fact I have a feeling that in a couple of years, it won’t be needed as the Big Banks will be a shadow of their former self.
Take myself, who is increasingly becoming a type of person common in this country.
I only use my bank account for one main purpose and that is to accept and receive money transfers and manage regular payments. They do provide me with a credit card, but it is not one I use daily.
My savings are stored in a separate account, which happens to be a peer-to-peer-lender, but could be a Savings Account anywhere. But more of us, are using innovative ways to keep our savings and this will increase.
I never write cheques and only ever go into a bank branch to use a cash machine, if I want to sit down to organise my money after withdrawing it.
I don’t know what percentage of the population are like me, who effectively use the bank as a money transfer company and possibly an overdraft source, whilst waiting for a payment to clear.
But it must be quite a high figure these days!
We don’t need banks at all and it is a market that people will target in an innovative way. Certainly, if a company, can give me a much better computer system for on-line banking, I’d join them like a shot.
But then banks and innovation are two words that rarely go together!
On the whole I suspect this group of customers, are probably pretty sanguine about banking and in most cases wouldn’t want the hassle of moving. I sometimes think about moving from Nationwide, but what I want is a better computer and support system and how do I find out if it’s what I want? With very great difficulty I suspect!
So Milliband’s banker bashing doesn’t impress, as we probably feel that any new bank would be more of the same grey product.
And anyway, I choose my bank, not politicians.
But a better innovative on-line bank, with a proper computer system, programmed in the UK, supported totally by the Internet and a UK call centre, with no branch premises will come.
Done properly, I’d transfer my business to it and I suspect many others would.
The other thing that would shoot Milliband’s fox, is if regulators made it possible to transfer our bank account overnight or at least in a couple of days, keeping the same account number.
One of the troubles about the next election, is that many of the people who vote will be up to their neck in Wonga and other loans and are the sort of people, a decent bank wouldn’t touch.
The Anonymous Widower 