Category Archives: Politics

The Big Society

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Just over 2 years ago in May 2010, the election in the UK ended with a coalition between the Conservative and Liberal parties. One of the flagship policies of the (majority of the coallition) conservative party was what they called The Big Society. For a while this phrase was used over and over again with the assumption that everyone knew exactly what it was about. And to a certain degree it is still being bandied around.

Below you can see the coalition leader and Prime Minister, David Cameron, next to one of their Big Society signs.

David Cameron. Image taken from http://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk

Several times i’ve read articles or listened to interviews about what the Big Society is about and also heard people sound confused not knowing what it is.

What the Government want us to believe it is:
Bringing Society together by giving more power to the communities that make them up (or something like that)

But to me it is simply a means of not paying into public sector employment and making the everyday person volunteer to do a job for free so that they can pass their austerity measures to make cutbacks right to the bone.
Read the wikipedia page for more info.

And the other day I think I read an article in the evening standard that sums it up perfectly and I can’t find it online so here’s a post from the Jewish Chronicle about the same thing instead:

Hampstead Garden Suburb to be taken over by Volunteers – opened by Jonathan Ross

The Government wants to save money on libraries by selling them off, along with everything in them and getting rid of the staff who work in them.
The locals protest about the loss of the library to the society and find the volunteers to work the library for free.

Big Society sure it’s good for the community coming together.
But to me the truth is all about the Big Money Saver?
I’ll let you make up your own mind

Europe, European Council, EU, Eurozone

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Norway is 1 of 3 countries that are in the European Economic Area but not part of the European Union is something I didn’t realise until today.

The terms Europe, the Eurozone and EU are not interchangeable and it is important to appreciate the different memberships within “Europe”:

Council of Europe – the council of Europe has 47 members (almost all European states), cannot make laws but among many other functions all members of the council are party to the European Convention on Human Rights.
European Union (EU) – 27 members not all are in the Eurozone
The Eurozone – States that have the Euro as the sole currency and hence the currency is controlled by the European Central Bank
European Economic Area (EEA) – 30 states – the EU is a subset of the EEA
European Free Trade Association (EFTA) – 4 states and represents countries who are members of the EEA but not the EU plus switzerland.
Schengen – 26 states – members of Schengen are allowed to cross borders to other Schengen states without the need for border control. Being within the EEA is not a requirement to be within the Schengen Area.
EU Customs Union – 4 states – effectively means that when travelling from another EU customs union state passage can be made through the EU channel rather than the Nothing to declare channel.
Agreement with EU to mint Euros – 3 states – these are states which are not members of the eurozone but are permitted to mint Euro coins because the currency of the state is one of a state that is now part of the eurozone and hence not attached to a monetary system.

This gives rise to a Euler diagram showing which countries are members of what:

So, there are:

17 States in the Eurozone
7 States in the EU without the Euro but within Schengen
3 States in the EU not in Schengen and without the Euro (includes the UK)

This is the 27 EU States

Beyond this are the European non EU nations:

Vatican City can mint Euros but is not Schengen nor EU Customs Union and is also not part of the Council of Europe. All other States mentioned are members of the Council of Europe.
San Marino and Monaco can mint Euros, is part of Eu Customs Union with Monaco also being part of Schengen
Andorra and Turkey can’t mint Euros but are part of EU customs Union
Switzerland is part of EFTA and Schengen
Iceland Lichenstein and Norway are part of EFTA, EEA and Schengen
12 countries: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzogovina, Croatia, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, Macedonia, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine are part of the Council of Europe

This totals 47 countries that are on the council of europe (48 if we add the vatican in to give the total countries)

“But I knew that” I hear you say… but did you know that there is also a list of special member state territories of the EU many of which aren’t in Europe and some of them have the Euro as currency?

There are about 50 territories which are covered by Article 52 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 355 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

So I hope that now makes the definition of the EU and the Eurozone clear yet seem not totally European. Even part of the members of the Council of Europe are not in Europe… French Guyana which is an overseas region of France (hence one of the 10 founding members) is in South America!

Phone Hacking

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The news of the moment in the UK is the News of the World Phone Hacking Scandal. With rumours that there are lists of 1000’s of celebrities, Government officials, criminals and victims who have had their phones hacked by journalists of the news of the world hysteria has hit the british press and the newspaper buckled under pressure and shut down.
Baffled by the reaction, I thought about the story, and suspect there is a fair amount of misunderstanding amongst the public. Especially when it comes to the question “What is Phone Hacking”. And the first thing to remember it is nothing like the underworld of computer hacking, virus writing, web page hijacking, or even phreaking to make free phone calls. No, what it is is simply playing off human lazyness and taking advantage of a functionality mobile phone networks introduced many years ago.
Almost every phone operator gives the option to check your mobile phone messages “remotely” ie from another phone when you do not have it with you. This is also the case for most modern answerphones for landlines.

For those who have not been following the stories, have a look on google news

For mobile phones it is simple:
1) You phone your mobile phone
2) Wait for the voicemail divert
3) Press the * key
4) Enter your PIN code

And your messages are read out as if you were accessing it from your own mobile phone.
The vast majority of users are (or until now) were unaware of this as they had no use for it and therefore would never go into their settings to change the PIN code.
Therefore, for most people the default will work – and this includes celebrities.
Clearly, you can’t initiate this plan if the person you are trying to get hold of answers the phone, so the ususal plan is to work in pairs where one person phones and if the person picks up the 2nd person immediately phones from another line and will immediately get through to voicemail. Meanwhile the original person phoning who got through to the person will give some excuse such as claim to be a sales person offering products that will be refused or that they have dialed an incorrect number opening the way for the other person who has got into the voicemail to listen through the messages saved, find out any numbers left by people who have left messages or even delete messages.

This BBC news site story has more info.
The guardian has a whole section of their website dedicated to it.

Out of curiosity I decided to try and hack my own phone having done a bit of googling to find the default pin codes.
The first problem i found was that I had actually disabled my voicemail which would explain why I hadn’t had any messages recently – not that i use it much. Next, having enabled it after 10 seconds of ringing I got through, followed the process only to find the default pins did not work, suggesting i had in fact changed the pin code at some point and have no idea what it is so good luck phone hackers getting into my voicemail!!

Government Coalition NHS U-turn

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Finally, it sounds like the news is out on what the coalition is going to do with NHS Commissioning.
Following the post election promises that the NHS was safe from radical reform the government unleashed a white paper that had more change than had been seen in 20 years. The big change being that Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), the guardians of the funding used to treat patients would be abolished following a period where many were in heavy debt (millions of UK£’s), and would be replaced by General Practitioner (GP) Consortia. These consortia would be set up from scratch and represent several GP Practices, predicted to total more than the number of PCTs.

The problem with this is that many GP practices did not want the responsibility of holding the purse strings, whereas others were keen. On top of this, the coallition government are very keen that the patient’s best interests are represented. The new U turn has yet another radical change to the commissioning of health care. Meanwhile, the PCTs are consolidating their debt by merging – something the former labour government recommended as part of their proposals. And while they do so more money is being spent on organisations which appear to have a limited shelf life.

We await to see what the full proposals will be and what they will yield.