This weekend I’ll mostly be listening to… Pocket remixing Steve Kilbey, Robyn Hitchcock, Mark Burgess and others January 23, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, This Weekend I'll Mostly Be Listening to....add a comment
Here’s a nice little project that in an aesthetic sense links right into 1980s indie. Pocket, one Richard Jankovich, a famed producer from the US whose list of remixes includes the likes of Radiohead, Of Montreal and Beck has decided that there is nothing he’d like better in the world than to collaborate with a list of names drawn from the great and the good of off-kilter 1980s and 1990s indie and punk with the odd contemporary artist thrown in. And it’s a cracking idea and, for the most part, a cracking result.
Unfortunately there are only a few of the tracks available on YouTube, but they give a sense of the approach he is pursuing.
For those who may have missed his latest ‘look’ a newly hirsute and bearded Steve Kilbey may come as a shock, but it’s a nice track nonetheless.
There’s something just about perfect about Robyn Hitchcock’s voice set to electronica/dance intoning menacingly… “Surround him with love…”. Hmmm… But sadly that has yet to make it to YouTube. Check out the preview whereever you can find it… here’s one on Pocket’s website.
http://music-by-pocket.com/pocket-ftrg-robyn-hitchcock-surround-him-with-love/
Instead we have Dave Smalley of punk bands DYS, Dag Nasty and more recently Down By Law.
And what on earth is Mark Burgess of the Chameleons singing/saying on A Force of Nature?
Kimi Recor is a member of a US based indie band and perhaps loops back to a more typical dance sound.
Got to love it. Well, I do… 
Hear In Noiseville – Pocket Feat. Steve Kilbey
Pocket featuring Dave Smalley – “Beautiful Gray”
A Force Of Nature – Pocket Feat. Mark Burgess
Break Your Heart Wildly – Pocket Feat. Kimi Recor
That financial crisis…it’s all in your head… courtesy of the journalists. Oh yes. January 22, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.33 comments
You know, it’s perhaps difficult to say this, but really, John Waters is simply getting odder and odder. Some feat for a man whose treading of the outer limits is already – ahem – noteworthy. What’s curious about him these days is the sort of hand-wringing overt political and social conservatism wrapped in a touchey feeley language that seems lifted, and this may not be coincidental, from self-help and suchlike.
For how otherwise to explain the sheer weirdness of his latest offering? Under the heading: Media professionals’ odd mix of sour grapes, guilt and egalitarianism threatens to affect our chances of recovery he writes… No, wait. I can’t let that pass. The economic ‘recovery’ is threatened by ‘media professionals’?
One presumes that he doesn’t actually read the newspapers, you know, not just the Irish Times, but the high selling ones like the Independent and Sunday Independent. For who, seriously, could contend that ‘media professionals’ are suffused with egalitarianism.
Anyhow, continue Waters… enlighten us as to the situation at hand…
EVERY SO often, a journalist peels him- or herself off from the pack and goes into PR, “consultancy” or the law, and immediately seems to become unfathomably richer. This syndrome is one of the great puzzles confronting modern journalists, who, on encountering former colleagues sporting off-season suntans or impossibly shiny shoes, are moved to wonder where it all went wrong for themselves. It is rarely helpful that the defectors are never the most outstanding scribes, but rather the kind who just made the first team and rarely put the ball in the net.
Now check this out…
Because many journalists are well-known, people assume they are extravagantly well-paid, but this is not generally the case. In fact, journalism has, income-wise, remained among the middle-ranking occupations. Most journalists are paid reasonably well, but, apart from a few at the top end of the broadcast sector, not obscenely so.
Middle ranking he says? So, well above the average industrial wage, and well above the median industrial wage too I’ll hazard. But, he’s a warning about how this ‘middle-ranking’ occupation, and by the way, for the record I’m not in a middle ranking bracket myself, so presumably my guilt, sour-grapes and envy are such that we could be making bitter bitter wine.
People are attracted to journalism because they want to write, or exert influence in what appears to be a glamorous profession. Only later do some desire to get rich, and – too late – realise they’re in the wrong job. (I do not exclude myself from these judgments, except to the extent that, feeling blessed to have blagged my way into journalism at all, I still fear being discovered and ejected. I long ago accepted that there is nothing else anyone would pay me to do.) “The media” was not, generally speaking, one of those sectors in which it became possible to get rich during the boom years. For one thing, the Tiger years coincided with a period of increasing pressure from “new” media; for another, pay structures in media are – apart again from the upper reaches of the broadcast industry – tied into standard “partnership” norms.
It would be nice if he were to reference some data on this. it really would. What does he mean by ‘partnership’ norms? He does not explain. But, note that he uses the mealy-mouthed ‘some desire to get rich’. How many? Is it a large cohort or a small one?
For not unrelated reasons, journalism boasts a disproportionate number of what are called socialists. This is in part because many of the current big-name Irish journalists emerged out of the left-liberal revolution of the 1960s, but it may also be related to the unhappiness of many journalists on discovering that their payslips do not reflect their alleged influence or their public profiles.
But if that’s the case who are the big-name journalists who are clearly socialist. By my reckoning of commentators it’s a handful now compared to even a decade and a half ago. And really, most were liberal rather than left. No shame in that. But liberal, as we know and have seen, has a tendency to be able to pitch right when the time is right. And then he continues…
Demands for redistribution are nowadays more likely to come from journalists than other professionals, including politicians. This arises from an odd mixture of egalitarianism, guilt and sour grapes. Interestingly, the better remunerated the journalist, the more likely he or she is to be incessantly demanding that other people be paid less or taxed more.
It’s remarkable that John Waters, of all people, given his views in the past, should be so sneering of the concept of redistribution. It’s perhaps equally remarkable that he should link that into ‘egalitarianism, guilt and sour grapes’. He is one of our more vocal exponents of Christianity, a religion that has at its heart to its credit tilted towards the former ‘egalitarianism’ while – it is true – having no end of guilt and sour-grapes. So perhaps it’s not such an odd mixture at all.
Given that by his own reckoning there are relatively few ‘better remunerated’ journalists he must indeed be talking about a small cohort indeed. So these ‘demands’ for redistribution must be, logically, few in number.
Then he continues…
A frequent refrain of journalism in the past two years has been that Ireland “surrendered to materialism” in the Tiger years, lost the “run” of herself and became obsessed with getting rich.
I’d have thought the leading exponent of that school was Breda O’Brien, on the very page he writes on. And she is hardly of the left. Indeed, this ‘materialism’ trope has, should he care to look at the back issues of the Irish Times mostly been expressed by… hmmm… him! And not in the last two years but across a career on those pages.
Which makes his next statement even more curious…
But even a cursory inventory of the average newspaper of recent times renders it difficult to avoid the conclusion that obsession with money has actually grown since the economy collapsed. About 60 per cent of news stories and perhaps 80 per cent of opinion columns these days are about banks, bankers, growth, deflation, budgets, taxation or some other money-related topic. The overall content might be summarised as betraying an obsession with other people’s money, which perfectly defines our present disposition.
Or it might be that an economic collapse is – and I am hesitant about putting forward such a blindingly fecking obvious theory – all about matters financial and monetary, that that would entail quite a reasonable obsession with, not ‘other peoples’ money, but our own. And that Waters betrays an absolute detachment from reality in his inability to understand that this isn’t some abstract concept but is a very real impact, that perhaps he on his middle-raking income has some security from, on ordinary peoples jobs, wages and lives.
Oh yeah, and by the by a little evidence that it’s 60% of news stories and 80% of news columns would be of some use.
The chief symptoms of our collective response to the meltdown of 2008 have been rage, guilt, envy and occasional demands for retribution and redistribution, all of which are readily traceable to the sentiments and attitudes of the journalistic profession. Once again, we seem to be moving towards lengthy public inquiries – arising mainly from the demands of journalists – which promise to swell further the bank balances of lawyers and PR consultants, thereby ensuring that journalists become even more disgruntled.
This is just bizarre. It really is. So ‘our’ response, to the near collapse of the economy are all due to the meeja. If it weren’t so reductionist, and solipsistic reduction at that, it would be laughable. Actually, no, it is laughable. That he think inquiries are simply down to the ‘demands’ of journalists is equally laughable. His sense of the demos is clearly askew.
And this affects in a profound way the national response to present economic circumstances. For one thing, all this niggling and lamentation tends to make people unhappy, guilty, fearful and annoyed, so that the continuing obsession with the forensics of prosperity is now threatening to affect our chances of recovery, which, as any first-year economics student knows, will depend on the nurturing of optimism and confidence.
His logic being if only people didn’t complain they would be happy. Is there a more reactionary prescription? And optimism and confidence, and recovery, depend on ensuring that within obvious constraints that these circumstances never happen again. But, look here at yet more reaction evident in his thinking.
Moreover, the present discussion has created the impression that the problems have all been to do with greed and rogue bankers, when really the core problem relates to the engorgement of the State over recent decades. This is not merely an economic problem, but also a social, psychological and existential one, causing enormously increased pressures on citizens who are required to keep the monster alive. This situation was brought about largely at the insistence of some of the very commentators now leading the clamour for heads on spikes.
Is he entirely serious? The ‘engorgement’ of the State is the problem? That is why the ECB treads carefully around the monies being poured into NAMA asserting that they’re essentially off the books, monies whose volume is such that it dwarfs our annual deficit? He doesn’t bother to explain what he means, but even during the boom, and the figures bear this out, this state continued its business with a smaller than average civil and public service and public services than the EU norm. So we must conclude he either doesn’t know what he’s talking about, hence his tilt towards ‘social psychological and existential one’ which means near nothing, and his reference to ‘enormously increased pressures on citizens who are required to keep the monster alive’ which is risible in the overtly and expressly ‘low tax model’ economy that we have and have had and that the Commission on Taxation took as its starting point.
And who are these commentators? Well he doesn’t bother to say. Explanations being so… unnecessary when one is talking complete nonsense.
Perhaps, then, it is time to consider the extent to which our collective response to the collapse of the economy has been defined by attitudes that are neither representative nor productive, but arise mainly from the prejudices of the messengers.
In as far as you can sum up the “national” response to this crisis, you would have to conclude that, by and large, it corresponds to the outlook of the journalistic profession. It is hard to imagine that – if journalists were better paid, or if the national conversation were led instead by, say, priests – the current rage-and-blame phase would have lasted as long as it has.
His apparent inability to accept that people can arrive at opinions about matters without mediation by journalists or politicians and that these opinions can diverge quite strikingly from his own thoughts is now palpable. Or, to put it another way, he just doesn’t seem to get that other people have beliefs and thoughts of their own and aren’t just empty vessels or actors who must dance to his, or anyone else’s tune. That they can look at their own circumstances and see how they have been impacted upon negatively and draw their own conclusions and draw up their own ‘demands’.
This is a smug, complacent and self-centred article given the actual pain and fear of those who have lost jobs, seen wages cut, found it impossible to meet mortgage repayments, had repossessions of their property, seen community programmes cut, seen health and education provision cut, seen semi-state agencies such as the Council on Bioethics abolished, seen the state move towards protecting the financial sector while seemingly indifferent to the plight of ordinary people…
Abysmal.
Labour and Education: It’s the Middle Classes who Suffer January 22, 2010
Posted by Garibaldy in British Labour Party, British Politics.6 comments
The Righs of Free-born English (middle class)men in peril
Yep. You read the headline right. Someone has had the audacity to claim that Labour’s education policies are hurting and belittling the English middle classes. And not just any someone. It was Richard Cairns, head of Brighton College, which had the “best A-Level results of any co-educational school in England”. Brighton College, unsurprisingly, is a fee-paying institution (and therefore benefits from Labour’s decision to preserve its charitable status), and its schedule of fees for the current academic year can be found here (I particularly admire the fact that things like music and support from its dyslexia centre cost extra. Clearly the sort of forward-thinking we need in education). Quoted in the Daily Telegraph (where else you might ask),
Mr Cairns said: “We do need to raise working-class aspirations but at the same time we need to celebrate the success of middle-class children and celebrate that fact that we have so many parents out there spending their time instilling the necessary soft skills and values and in their sons and daughters that they need to do well in life.
“The Government seems to think that the only way to raise aspirations in the working-class is to have all sorts of quota systems that, in turn, damage the middle-class children. That’s muddle-headed.
“There are only 12,000 places at Oxford. Instead of finding more extravagant ways to engineer admissions we should be expanding our best universities and raising the aspirations of all pupils to get into them on merit.”
In fact,
The threat of “quotas” to dictate admission to leading universities risks blocking the chances of hard-working children from relatively wealthy homes, said Richard Cairns, head of fee-paying Brighton College.
He called for the brightest working-class pupils to be given “elite” training – outside ordinary state comprehensives – to allow them to progress at the speed often reached by more affluent peers.
In other words, middle-class and upper-class parents can afford to pay for their children to go to exclusive schools where they get more attention and better facilities and resources, and it’s only right that their ability to pay gets rewarded in the universities their little darlings attend. Not that we might see any irony in the head of a boarding school talking about how middle class parents spend their time to instill their children with the necessary skills to succeed in life. Lest we be cynical about the headmaster’s philanthropic intent, it’s important to bear this in mind
Currently, Brighton College provides free sixth-form places to bright pupils from Kingsford [community school]. Five are currently at the fee-paying school and another three have already been through the scholarship programme.
I had a quick look round the Brighton College website but didn’t see any total student numbers, so I am unsure what proportion this is. It might be a very large proportion. Or it might not.
I would certainly agree that there is some muddle-headed thinking on display in this article. But I might place it somewhere differently than he does. I might of course be being unfair. It could be his speech included a long analysis of the relationship between class, money and educational attainment, and of how by the time you get to university level it is too late to try and even out the differing educational chances caused by economic inequality. I have my doubts though, especially given this remark.
Speaking before a conference in east London on Friday, Mr Cairns said: “India and China have a middle-class that seems to have doubled in size over the last 10 years, yet here we have a political system that seeks to reduce and diminish the ambitions of children born into middle-class homes in an attempt to raise the aspirations of the working-classes.”
Hmmmm. I wonder if the rapid economic development from a comparatively much lower base in those countries over the last ten years might have played a part in his gaining an impression of a rising middle-class compared to the UK. As for the children of the middle-class in often over-priced and over-rated fee-paying schools, I’m fairly confident that the 7% or so of children from fee-paying schools will continue to dominate access to the UK’s elite educational institutions (at a rate of about 7 times their proportion of the school population). I’m think they’ll manage to muddle through into the same types of well-paid jobs and lifestyles that their parents have envisioned for them, even if a few who have been well drilled to over-achieve in exams and interivews miss out on Oxford and Cambridge because of the nasty lefties trying to even out the advantages that the money of the dedicated and caring parents of the English middle class in no way provides.
The Irish Election Literature Blog… January 22, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.2 comments
As AK notes, and as ever many thanks,
..anyhow this week for you there’s material from the Left, material attacking the Left and two unusual ones also.
From The Left…..
I’m sure this one will be of particular interest to yourself .
Tony Gregorys 1991 Local Elections Manifesto
Eamonn O’Liatháin of The Workers Party from the 1987 General Election in Dublin South
Attacking the Left….
“Left-Wing Government? NO thanks!” from the PDs in 2007
“They will tax the roof over your head” -A Fine Gael Anti Property Tax leaflet from 1994.
The irony being that the introduction of a Property Tax was one of the sticks the Right regularly tried to scare the middle classes away from the Left with…
Then we have the unusual…
The Tories spent a fortune in getting their ‘Tree’ logo….. which was inspired by…?
and for many the highlight of the week, a selection of posters from the 1948 General Election, the first of which is brilliantly defaced.
A poll, at last… January 21, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics, The Left.32 comments
Well, well, well. MRBI have done a poll for the Irish Times to be published tomorrow and, surprise, surprise, there’s a slight increase in support for the Government and Taoiseach.
The modest recovery in the satisfaction ratings of the Government and the Taoiseach has brought them back to levels last seen in November, 2008.
That high – eh? Well they won’t be opening the champagne down at FF headquarters just yet, but…
When people were asked who they would vote for if there were a general election tomorrow, the adjusted figures for party support, compared with the last Irish Times poll on September 24th last were: Fianna Fáil, 22 per cent (up two points); Fine Gael, 32 per cent (up one point); Labour, 24 per cent (down one point); Sinn Féin, 8 per cent (down one point – an error in the original draft of this taken from the IT website had them up one point – apologies wbs); Green Party, 3 per cent (down one point); and Independents/others, 11 per cent (no change).
Looks like they won’t be opening the champagne at GP headquarters at all. Sure, it’s in the margin of error, and by some way, but… a downward shift. Not great. And they’re not exactly thrilled over the banking inquiry and the way that’s played out…
And look at the other figures. Fine Gael and Labour there or thereabouts. SF doing what it does best these days, holding steady in the 7 – 10% bracket, and what do you know, no Forde effect after his trip across the barricades to Labour (despite the heated rhetoric pro and contra when he first packed his bags). To be honest I think the unadjusted figures are more interesting again…
The core vote for the parties (before undecided voters are excluded) compared with the last Irish Times poll was: Fianna Fáil, 20 per cent (up two points); Fine Gael, 24 per cent (up one point); Labour, 17 per cent down one point); Sinn Féin, 7 per cent (down two points); Green Party, 2 per cent (down one point); Independents/Others, 8 per cent (no change); and undecided voters 22 per cent (up one point).
Look at all those undecideds. And look at the core votes. FF can surely only go up, short of catastrophe. Although these days, who knows?
But look at this…
Satisfaction with the Government is up five points to 19 per cent while satisfaction with the performance of Taoiseach Brian Cowen is up three points to 26 per cent.
Again, no champagne, but…
I’m funny about polls, but I have a slight tendency to prefer RedC over MRBI. It will be interesting to compare and contrast.
Regulation blues… January 21, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.9 comments
The always readable Michael Casey, formerly of the Central Bank, and now a board member of the IMF writes in the Irish Times about the banking inquiry with a set of questions that he believes should be put to said inquiry.
It’s all good stuff, and he’s certainly pointing the finger in no uncertain way at the key pressure points – did the government give specific responses to information, if any, passed by the banks and the regulator… or did the regulator express concerns in the first place?
It’s not hard to pick out what he’s getting at…
But one comment that caught my eye was the following…
This is the most fundamental question and it is important to explore it further. In its mission statement the regulator is strangely silent on the question of intervening in a troubled financial institution. It could be argued that the failure to intervene is due to bureaucratic inertia. The regulators wait and wait and hope the problem will disappear. The point then comes when the troubled institution hits the wall and it is too late. We then go suddenly from the possibility of preventative action to the need for damage limitation – which as we have seen in Ireland is extraordinarily complex and costly.
And also…
What is intriguing is the possibility that the Financial Regulator does not have an endgame. Is it conceivable that regulators never have any intention of intervening? This is the fundamental question that must be pinned down by the investigation because it raises profound issues about what regulation is all about.
It’s perhaps useful to look at the Financial Regulators website…for under the ‘Role of the Financial Regulator’ one will read the following…
Role of the Financial Regulator
The purpose of the Financial Regulator is:
• to help consumers to make informed decisions on their financial affairs in a safe and fair market; and
• to foster sound dynamic financial institutions in Ireland
The Financial Regulator undertakes its role in a number of integrated ways:
• Rigorous authorisation procedures for entrants to the financial services market
• Supervision of financial service providers which focuses on their solvency and risk management processes
• Recurring compliance with consumer protection code so that financial service providers act in a fair and transparent manner in their dealings with consumers
• Provision of independent information to consumers to raise awareness of the costs, risks and benefits of various financial services
Y’know, he’s right. The pertinent words are ‘help’… ‘foster’… ‘supervision’… ‘recurring compliance’ (not entirely sure what they’re trying to say there). But curiously, not a single phrase that indicates that they actually intervene. All very hands off.
Now it’s not as if it has no powers… for under ‘Processes’ we can read…
The Financial Regulator has a number of key processes that apply to most financial service providers. These processes are:
Administrative Sanctions
The Financial Regulator has power to impose sanctions for prescribed contraventions of legislation or regulatory rules by financial service providers. For more information visit our Administrative Sanctions Section.
Anti-Money Laundering
Financial institutions currently designated under the Criminal Justice Act, 1994 (the Act) are obliged to take the necessary measures to effectively counteract money laundering in accordance with the provisions of the Act. For more information visit our Anti-Money Laundering Section.
Authorisation
The following is a general overview of the authorisation regime applied by the Financial Regulator when authorising financial service providers. For more information visit our Authorisation Section.
Consumer Protection
The Consumer Protection Code, which came fully into effect on 1 July 2007, is the foundation of the Financial Regulator’s work in protecting consumers of the financial services providers we regulate. For more information visit our Consumer Protection Section.
Establishing in Ireland
The Financial Regulator is responsible for the regulation of most financial service firms in Ireland. The first step for a firm or individual proposing to provide a financial service in Ireland is to ascertain whether they need an authorisation/licence/approval from the Financial Regulator. For more information visit our Establishing in Ireland Section.
Industry Funding Levy
Any financial service provider who is authorised and regulated by the Financial Regulator on 31 December of a given year is liable to pay the levy for the following year. For more information visit our Industry Funding Levy Section.
Minimum Competency Requirements
The Minimum Competency Requirements introduce a competency framework that is designed to establish minimum standards for regulated entities. For more information visit our Minimum Competency Requirements Section.
Supervision Approach
The following is general information on our supervisory process for financial service providers is provided. For more information visit our Supervision Section.
But these are, at least to judge from the accompanying texts, aimed more at issues relating to consumers rather than systemic oversight and it’s notable that the FR is split into a Prudential and Consumer Directorate dealing respectively with… well.. you can guess….
One might reasonably, given the events that overtook the financial system in the past number of years, wonder if the gulf between mission statement as noted by Casey, and processes available, indicates a broader philosophical approach to such matters and a consequent deficit in not merely instruments available to pry into and regulate such matters but a hesitancy to do so.
And by way of contrast let us briefly consider the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in the UK which has the following mission statement;
We are an independent body that regulates the financial services industry in the UK.
We have been given a wide range of rule-making, investigatory and enforcement powers in order to meet our four statutory objectives. In meeting these, we are also obliged to have regard to the Principles of Good Regulation.
We summarise our Statutory Objectives and Principles of Good Regulation in three Strategic Aims:
• Promoting efficient, orderly and fair markets;
• Helping retail consumers achieve a fair deal; and
• Improving our business capability and effectiveness
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is an independent organisation responsible for regulating financial services in the UK.
The FSA’s aim is to promote efficient, orderly and fair financial markets and help retail financial service consumers get a fair deal.
The FSA was set up by government. The government is responsible for the overall scope of the FSA’s regulatory activities and for its powers.
The FSA regulates most financial services markets, exchanges and firms. It sets the standards that they must meet and can take action against firms if they fail to meet the required standards.
Furthermore…
We have a wide range of rule-making, investigatory and enforcement powers to enable us to meet four statutory objectives summarised as one overall aim: to promote efficient, orderly and fair markets and to help retail consumers achieve a fair deal.
[...]In January 2000, we set out our proposed approach to regulation in A ‘New Regulator for the New Millennium’. This explained the operating framework we intended to put in place to enable us to meet our statutory objectives.
This framework is more commonly known as ARROW, which stands for the Advanced, Risk-Responsive Operating frameWork, and it is at the heart of our risk-based approach to regulation.
We reviewed and updated ARROW after its first few years in operation. The current framework, ARROW II, was rolled out in 2006.
We explain more about how we specifically apply ARROW II when supervising firms in ‘how we supervise firms’.
As a risk-based regulator, our approach is based on a clear statement of the realistic aims and limits of regulation; it recognises the proper responsibilities of consumers and of firms’ own management, as well as the impossibility and undesirability of removing all risk and failure from the financial system.
Note a very specific point made in the following…
How we supervise firms
‘Supervision’ is the term we use to describe our day-to-day regulatory relationship with authorised firms. It is our process of monitoring and regulating firms to ensure they are complying with the regulatory requirements.
As a general principle, we supervise firms according to the risks they present to our statutory objectives. We assess risks in terms of their impact (the scale of the effect these risks will have on consumers and the market if they were to happen) and probability (the likelihood of the particular issue occurring).
The nature and extent of our supervisory relationship with an individual firm depends on how much of a risk we consider it could pose to our statutory objectives. The framework we use to assess that risk is called ‘ARROW’ – the Advanced Risk-Responsive Operating frameWork. We introduced an improved framework (ARROW II) in 2006.
The reference to the ‘market’ indicates that the FSA doesn’t merely see this in terms of consumers and/or firms but also in a systemic fashion. And FSA supervision is rigorous (albeit and obviously not perfect).
Medium and high-impact firms
In relation to medium and high-impact firms, we coordinate our work through a relationship manager, who carries out a regular risk assessment (on a cycle of one to four years) and determines a risk mitigation programme proportionate to the risks identified. The precise volume and type of work we undertake will depend on the size and riskiness of the firm concerned.
We also apply baseline monitoring activities (as this is undertaken for all firms regardless of their impact scores). This involves analysing a firm’s financial and other returns, and checking compliance with notification requirements. Breaches and other indicators of risk may be followed up by the supervisory team. For high impact firms, we apply a closer monitoring regime (we call this ‘close and continuous’ work). This is essentially a planned schedule of ARROW visits to the firm throughout the regulatory period. This allows the supervisory team to meet the firm’s senior management and control functions regularly.
Where possible, we will centralise our supervision of all of the firms within a group in a single team. When appropriate (for example, if we believe the group has an integrated management and/or control structure) we will produce a combined ARROW risk assessment and risk mitigation programme covering all the firms in a group.
It looks like Casey’s thoughts bear further consideration. He makes another point…
The people who took bad decisions should be named since this is part of the process of reforming the system. It is unlikely, however, that many people will be named – because of our Houdini-like capacity to unshackle ourselves of responsibility. It is also worth remembering that our system of political appointees allows senior politicians pull the strings without the public knowing.
One would be sanguine indeed to believe that in any such process, political appointees or not, that the line of communication (and potentially more) went in but one direction.
Independence Days… January 21, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.8 comments
A sad but interesting interview in the Daily Mail by Jason O’Toole with Finian McGrath last weekend, which while touching directly upon the tragic difficulties he has had personally in the last year also seemed to me to echo something we haven’t heard too much of since Tony Gregory fell ill. And perhaps not coincidentally a certain T. Gregory figures large in the interview…
2009 was the most difficult year in his life because not only did he lose his wife but he lost his political mentor, the TD Tony Gregory, to cancer as well. ‘When he died i t was absolutely horrific. It was a very, very difficult time. I served my apprenticeship with Tony. He was a mentor. He gave me loads of guidance.
‘During the 80s when there was massive poverty, unemployment, drugs problems, you name it — I joined his team. I was working in a school in Dorset Street and I met Tony and he said, “Do you want to give me a hand doing some work?” ‘While I was out canvassing for
Tony, I began to see what Tony was up to and I thought, “I’d like some of this. It would suit me”.
That certainly rings true for any of us roped into TG’s orbit.
‘I was active politically for ten or 12 years before I decided. I said to Tony that I was thinking about the idea (of running) and he said, “You’re living in Marino, why don’t you start building your profile and base in Marino”. So, that’s how I got involved.’
The next part is particularly interesting…
And it was Tony Gregory, along with Senator Joe O’Toole, to whom Finian turned for guidance when he was negotiating his deal in 2007 with Bertie Ahern to support the
Fianna Fail-led government. Surprisingly, Finian reveals that Tony also briefly considered supporting Bertie’s historical third term as taoiseach.
One might reasonably wonder how briefly?
But after years of local political rivalry between the two, Tony didn’t want to talk to Bertie directly and had Finian act as an intermediary.
‘Bertie was interested in getting Tony in and I was the broker between the two of them. Tony wouldn’t step forward. Bertie never had an issue about Tony, but Tony had loads of issues about Bertie.’
Hmmm… Not sure that he’s got that relationship bang to rights.
As regards the McGrath Deal (which somehow doesn’t trip off the tongue like the Gregory Deal…
…despite withdrawing his support for the government after the 2009 budget, Finian says he’s still very proud of what his short-lived agreement with Bertie achieved. He says that ‘locally E35million’ was spent in his constituency and ‘then the project in St Vincent’s Centre was worth another E34million.’ He continues: ‘If I got the whole deal implemented, it would have been worth between E350million and E400million. But there was only part of the deal implemented. I have a four-page document signed by myself and Bertie and I also have a record of all the things that were implemented.
‘The one particular project I’m very proud of is the 34 en-suite bed unit at St Vincent’s Hospital for cystic fibrosis patients. That’s in my deal. And even though I had a falling-out with the government that’s going to be implemented.
And that falling out?
‘I knew there was a downturn in the economy, but when Brian Cowen took over he gave me a letter saying he’d implement the full deal.
‘The medical card kicked off and I was very annoyed about how the senior citizens were treated. Then there was a combination of things, education issues, class sizes, the cervical cancer issue. ‘I like Brian Cowen, but I had a
huge political row with him. You can’t be shafting senior citizens, kids, cervical cancer issues, and you can’t be shifting education issues when you promised the opposite in my deal. It was a good political call because it preserved my integrity as
an independent.’
And for those of us who have had any dealings with FMcG that last bit, with an almost winning mixture of openness and something else, also rings entirely true.
As does the following…
Despite the loss of his wife, Finian is determined to run in the next General Election and says he would like to keep the memory and inspiration of Tony Gregory alive by helping to unite the independents into a major political force.
‘In the last local elections, a lot of the media missed the big hidden story that there were 130 independent councillors elected throughout the country. So, I’m always in contact with them and I raise a lot of Dáil questions for them. I am like their figurehead within the Dáil system.
I think the independent group could be a force for serious change in the future.
Well, perhaps.
‘As a group, we just need to get ourselves organised. Out of that 130 elected councillors there is a potential there for 20 TDs to get elected.
That’s serious stuff, but you have to up your game. My ambition is to unite independents.’
And again, perhaps, a laudable aim. But, he might just go looking at the provenance of many of these ‘independents’, a significant tranche of whom were originally, and until relatively recently, Progressive Democrats and – and I say this as one with obvious sympathies for the Independent left on councils as represented by people like Cieran Perry – are somewhat unlikely to follow the same course as himself, or indeed Maureen O’Sullivan – and am I over-reading this but where is mention of her, or Tony Gregory.
I’d also wonder if the Independent strand, at least in the Dáil election sometime in the nearish future, is going to be quite as resilient as it was during the late 1990s and during its heyday of the mid-2000s. It seems to me that the last election presaged a decline in their numbers, and while it is true that the disintegration (potentially, but not as of yet actually as seen in a General Election) of the Fianna Fáil vote could be good news for anyone with political ambitions who rebadges as an Independent, that remains to be seen particularly in light of whatever polling data comes to the fore over the next year and a half.
And even if the numbers do come back in numbers one wonders whether, given that many of them will be Fianna Fáil gene-pool, how amenable they will be, as were Flynn and Healey Rae to do the deal with that party. Should the numbers come up – of course. Or by contrast how easily would they would be willing to work with Fine Gael, as Lowry has with Fianna Fáil? That’s the thing about Independents. Sometimes they’re just a darn sight too Independent.
Ah… Tories and education… January 20, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.33 comments
…always good for predictability. Check out their latest wheeze. For David Cameron has decided that in the interests of ‘excellence’ and ‘brazen elitism’ a fabulous idea is that teachers must have better degrees if they are to get state funding for their studies.
It’s a genius like plan, isn’t it? And so sensible. Only the best and brightest can teach the best and brightest…
No, wait. Hold on a sec. It’s not quite that brilliant. Because it’s comparing apples and oranges, it’s ignoring these are two completely different job descriptions and skill sets.
Let me give a small example from direct experience. I’ve worked in the private sector most of the last two decades. I’ve got a reason, but not amazing, degree, but sufficient according to Cameron to get state funding for training. Fast-track, should I so wish, to teaching. Possibly even a headmastership. If I stay the course.
One small problem. I’m not sure that I’m that great at what I do in the area my degree was in and that I work at daily. I’m okay. I’m fine. But not great.
Now, by contrast, I think I’m not too bad at teaching, at least at third level (albeit I’ve been down the night classes and adult education path over the years as well). It’s difficult and time consuming and needs hours of my time both at the coal face and at home in preparation, contact and so on. But interestingly, in the area of third level that I work in you sort of fall into jobs without specific training.
And that’s hugely problematic in itself. There’s no guarantee that I am able to teach. I could easily be fooling myself. You’ll have to take my word for it that the outcomes I get aren’t bad and that I find it enjoyable and inspiring for myself. But that’s just my word.
But there are others who I know who definitely can’t teach. Not a bit of it. For whom entering a room filled with strangers, or worse again faces one has become all too familiar with, is an armpit soaking, stomach churning, nightmare. Who can’t convey a simple idea that working through in practice they could deal with in an instant, even at third level – given that students are less disruptive. And let’s not talk about secondary (albeit at least there is some training component before arriving at the job).
We’ve all seen these latter crew, all had to sit as they suffer. And we’ve suffered for it and we’ve probably had deficits in our education consequently. Some were incredibly bright. Others not so much.
So this notion that simple ability to get a ‘good’ degree is all it takes leaves me cold. It’s all too similar to the idea, always in vogue on the right, that governing politicians need to be replaced by business people and after that all will be well because their ‘experience’ will bring fresh insights. Sure, sure. Some business people would be fine. Me for instance, who came in from the private sector. But I know plenty others who tried to make that journey and didn’t succeed (and indeed the opposite, those who came straight from college and post-grad with no real experience or training and screwed right up). And why should this be a surprise? As noted before it’s about skill sets and job descriptions?
But wait, that side of the waterfront is covered too by Cameron…
He also announced plans for a Teach Now programme to allow people to transfer from professions such as banking and the law into teaching without having to do more exams, saying “only the best professionals with the best qualifications need apply”.
Cameron said: “If you’re a twentysomething or thirtysomething who has made it in another career but fancies giving teaching a go, the bureaucratic odds are stacked against you. It’s hard to access what options are available to you, unless you already work in a school. And you have to go through the rigmarole of applying to individual schools.
“Only the best professionals with the best qualifications need apply” for Teach Now, said Cameron. “After a rigorous application process, if you’ve made the grade, you’ll be put straight into a school.”
Ooops… Straight into a school? Hmmmm… I love experiments… but…
How on earth can we possibly know whether someone is suitable for teaching? I’m presuming his rigorous application process will include – well, what the current situation includes… won’t it? I sure hope so.
Because, and not to be overly repetitive, some teachers are good and some are bad and to determine which is which we need a very rigorous process. I had teachers who took one look at, say, my aptitude for maths (none, once we get past the obvious easy stuff, to be quite honest) and walked away. I think the idea of people entering teaching from other areas, and not just the ‘professions’ (whatever they may be, is a good idea. As broad a range of experience before can certainly be no harm, experience of the workplace outside the educational area is definitely a good thing and useful for students and pupils get some sense of. I’d encourage those from business, voluntary sector and where ever to be engaging. But I don’t think paths should be eased simply due to work background… Speaking about maths, what about this?
Cameron announced that he would “free schools to pay good teachers more”. Headteachers would have the power to use their budgets to pay bonuses to the best teachers, he said. The schools in poor areas that have the most impact are those where teachers stay late into the evening and come in on weekends, he added. “We will give them the flexibility to reward teachers for longer hours.”
Great… except… except there seems to be a problem with his addition and subtraction.
But teachers have struggled to see how this would work. Bousted [general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers] said: “If school budgets are not increased, then it would only be possible to pay some teachers more if pay is cut for others. This would do little to solve recruitment and retention problems. It is also hard to reconcile making teaching a ‘high-prestige profession’ on the same footing as doctors and lawyers if pay is based on the hours worked, with higher pay for working longer hours.”
And not only, but also, consider how this will impact on motivation. I’m not sure how many of you have encountered ‘bonus’ culture in the private sector but as one who has seen it in operation the reality is that it can breed discontent and sap morale.
And it’s not as if entering a teacher training course in the UK is simply down to a degree alone. I can go to the Graduate Teacher Training Registry site and learn that should I really really wish to become a teacher in England, Wales or Scotland I must complete the following courses:
• An initial teacher training (ITT) course in England or Wales that gives you Qualified Teacher Status (QTS).
• An initial teacher education (ITE) course in Scotland the gives you the Teaching Qualification (TQ).
Then…
If you successfully complete a primary, middle years or secondary teaching course in the GTTR scheme, you will have the Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) which you need to teach in state schools in England and Wales or the Teaching Qualification (TQ) which is required to teach in Scottish schools. Many schools in the independent sector will also require you to have QTS or the TQ, even though this is not a government requirement.
Nor is it as if one would be let out into a school, any school with a QTS… because to get a one:
In England you can take a PGCE course based at a university or college, or take a school-based course run by groups of schools that have formed school-centred initial teacher training (SCITT) consortia.
University and college courses normally incude lectures at the institution and school-based training in at least two of their partnership schools. Primary teaching courses include at least 18 weeks of school-based training and if you are taking a secondary teaching course, you will spend a minimum of 24 weeks training in schools.
And…
SCITT consortia run their courses almost entirely within their member schools. Each consortium will offer training in primary or secondary schools. You will usually be based in the ‘lead school’ and undertake teaching placements at other schools within the consortium. Teachers in the schools act as mentors to organise and monitor your training. Most SCITT consortia run courses that have been validated by a university or college for the award of their PGCE. You may be required to attend some lectures at this university or college as part of your school-based course.
In other words to become a teacher you have to train as a teacher. That that in and of itself requires specific hoops that you must jump through. And the schema outline above sounds like a reasonably intensive training regimen. And moreover sufficient time to be able to monitor and assess suitability to teach. Because, again, some can and some can’t. How will the titans of industry fare if they aren’t assessed? How could we possibly know? And Cameron seeks to do away with this… and on the face of it to introduce short cuts…
Now if, despite training, we know some duds slip through the net, then how are we meant to deal with a process which would, on the face of it potentially allow more through – whatever their academic qualifications, etc?
In any case how does Cameron’s plan assist with this dislocation between what we want and what we can actually do? Well, it doesn’t to be honest. Not one bit. Because you don’t pick teachers simply on their ability to know stuff, or to do stuff, but on their ability to impart it.
I’d be a damn sight more impressed if he – or anyone, left and right – actually examined the processes of how you ensure that teachers can… well… teach, and not solely in the most reductionist fashion of exam results. And the corollary of examining how you ensure that students and pupils can… well… learn.
But that might require something that eschewed snappy soundbites about ‘Teach Now’ and ‘brazenly elitist’, even putting the profoundly ideological and irritating aspect of that last phrase to one side, and considered what we’re actually trying to achieve here.
Meanwhile, while we’re on matters educational, funnily enough this dovetails almost perfectly. Orna Mulcahy’s latest piece on mature students has ruffled some feathers. The gist of it being that mature students shouldn’t really be allowed into college because they displace younger students. Now, you or I might think that even in jest this was pretty stupid stuff. We might consider that as with a social mix in colleges and universities (and me oh my, second level as well) that a degree of age mixing is no harm at all and might be of benefit… (as an aside depressing though to read in the comments the perhaps unintentionally insulting… ‘And as regards the mature students – these are not grey-haired perverts as you seem to suggest, but people aged 25-45 who are trying to skill-up and get on’… hey, I’ll be 45 this year! The future looks bleak…perversion and grey hair…).
Was Mulcahy being ironic? The letter writers to the Irish Times didn’t seem to think so. The comments under the article are a little less po-faced, I particularly like this one…’Once again Orna displays her exquisite sensitivity to the profound pain of Ireland’s privileged classes.’ But really who can tell? I doubt, has she troubled herself to think about the issue in any great detail, that she herself knows one way or another. And I doubt she much cares…
Which tells us at least something about what the Irish Times is like these days.
An election, you say? January 19, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics.46 comments
You know, there I was thinking that all was smooth sailing for the Government for another twenty-four months or so, errors and omissions excepted, and then what do I hear. Well, a most interesting snippet… reading about the Government legislative program for the Spring what does one see?
A spokesman said one of the most urgent was a Bill to allow the planned Dublin lord mayoral election to proceed in the summer.
Minister for the Environment John Gormley has said he will hold the election in June.
June? A mere five and a half months away. But there is optimism that it will take place…
A spokesman for the Minister said yesterday that the Bill would be published early in this session.
It would want, then, to be early in the session. Very early indeed.
But great news, I think we can all agree. A chance to take the political pulse above and beyond polls, albeit one restricted to Dublin.
Actually there’s much to ponder as regards this new political position, which granted isn’t hugely different to the old political position bar the fact the constituency has widened extravagantly. For example… how big is that constituency going to be? Where will the limits be? Who will be contesting it? What chances are there for the left to mount a campaign, preferably with an agreed candidate. And as nominally the most left of centre area on the island surely this could reap some rewards for the left.
Yep, there’s quite a bit to consider here. One can only hope that John Gormley has been considering it.
Nasty, very… January 19, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.8 comments
Reading lenin this week I was very much struck by the piece on Rod Liddle…formerly of the… er… Guardian (who can forget a column on abusive imagery on the internet and freedom of speech?) the Today programme on BBC, something or another at the Spectator and now apparently in line for the job of editor of the Independent. But to be honest, bad and all as his comments are on a football supporters’ website, perhaps more interesting as an exercise is to contemplate the bulk of the comments accompanying the Daily Mail story.
