Cereal Bunglers

TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2009

Cereal Bunglers

Nostalgiafests don't butter any parsnips - let alone feed 7 billion people

The top three stories on last night's C4 News formed an instructive conjunction:

Story 1

The government's panic programme to dish out Tamiflu like Smarties (see this blog) has backfired badly. It seems that for children at least, the side effects are worse than the swine flu Tamiflu was meant to be treating.

Now who could possibly have foreseen that?

Well, the Doc for one. When the Smarties programme was launched last month,he delivered his definitive verdict:

"I can prescribe Tamiflu, though as yet I have not. I would not take it, and I would not give it to my family, so why would I prescribe it for patients? What this means is that anyone with any vaguely viral symptom is going to get "treatment" for a condtion they probably do not have with a drug that is next to useless and may have hitherto unexpected side effects. Great!"

Story 2

The government's panic programme - expensively fronted by My Lord Sugar - to provide thousands of new apprenticeships has flopped:

"Earlier this year the government announced it would fund an extra 35,000 apprenticeships as part of efforts to tackle the recession, costing £140m. But its figures show there has been a decline in the numbers of 16 to 18-year-olds in England starting them - in the first nine months of 2008-09 the number dropped by 8.3% on the same period the previous year." 

Now who could possibly have foreseen that?

Well, Tyler for one. Back in January when the programme was launched he wrote:

"It's all part of Labour's current headline management/money burning exercise known as Doing Something Not Nothing.

Apprenticeships only work if employers actually take on apprentices, and with the virtual demise of British manufacturing, they largely stopped doing so.

What's more, the government's grandiose programme to have all 16 year olds stay on at school means that the minority who do leave are rather unlikely to be the ones employers might want to take on as apprentices."

Story 3

The government is now planning to inflict a new programme on us "to change the way food is produced and processed so that we continue to enjoy healthy affordable food in the decades ahead". The Rev Benn climbed into the pulpit and pleaded with us to mend our ways - before it's too late.

To which we say que?

Are we not supplied with cheap food beyond the wildest imaginings of our great grandparents? Is not the variety and the quality (if not the taste) fantastic? Is not food production getting more efficient with every passing year (watch the latest episode of the excellent Mud Sweat and Tractors here - especially you, Tyler Senior)? What's to change?

True, food prices did increase quite sharply last year. But they've now turned down again, and the longer term downward trend is unmistakable - even in this chart taken from Defra's own paper (food prices vs the RPI):

Indeed, despite the occasional hiccough, relative to general prices - and certainly relative to incomes - UK food prices have been on a long-term downward trend since the abolition of the Corn Laws in 1846. Which is why food now comprises only around 12% of the RPI shopping basket.

So what about the soaring population - all those extra mouths to feed?

Well, yes, from the perspective of food prices, that is somewhat less than ideal. But the vicar does not suggest we impose a Chinese style one child policy, or even that we should cap immigration. So he clearly doesn't think that's a pressing issue (Tyler has just been sent a paper by a BOM correspondent that puts an alternative view - we'll read and blog it in due course).

And let's not forget that technology is moving on apace, so that yields are still increasing. Here's Defra's chart for cereal yields since 1970:

And you know the really good bit? The recent increase in prices will surely serve to spur on the producers to invest in yet more technology to produce yet more food from the same amount of land.

It's called the market, you see. Higher prices = higher profits = more investment = higher production = more for everyone.

And if you're a believer in markets like Tyler, you say the markets will take care of it. The markets will spot the need for more food and will drive the technology to deliver it. Simples.

Or rather, simples as long as our bungling politicos and commissars don't decide they can do better than the market. As long as they don't step in to forbid the necessary technological innovation, say, or to subsidise farmers to take yet more of our fields out of production. Say.

Remind me - why does anyone ever believe these arrogant clowns know what they're doing?

PS Actually, the report Defra have published to support the Rev Benn's sermon is packed with fascinating charts. Here are one or two of them.

First, the real price of various agricultural commodities since 1970:

Not much of an upward trend there.

Second, the origins of the food we eat here:

Thank God for international trade, otherwise we'd still be living on turnips.

Third, the breakdown of where we buy our food:

Looks like we still disagree with the BBC and the Grun about Tesco - we clearly see it as a great grocer rather than the embodiment of capitalist evil.

MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 2009

Legacy Of Ruin

Things can only get better

Sources close to My Lord Mandy have told BOM that the government will shortly introduce measures to make Britain's boardrooms more equal.

When selecting directors in future, FTSE 100 companies will have to give preference to candidates who are qualification-poor.

An official at the Department of Bollocks told BOM "His Magnificence is determined to help people who have been denied the educational and work advantages enjoyed by traditional main board directors."

The official added: "Just because someone has suffered from going to a pisspoor state education factory and has subsequently proved to be unemployable does not mean he - or she - should be denied a board position. In selecting their directors, companies must not discriminate against those whose underachieving backgrounds and lack of qualifications might in the past have precluded admission to the board room."

*****

Having destroyed educational excellence in our state schools, Labour is well on the way to doing the same to our universities.

Last week we learned that the percentage of students getting firsts has virtually doubled under Labour - despite the fact that student numbers are up by a staggering 30%.

And now Mandy has apparently decided that university applicants from poor families should be given a two-grade "head start" to help them secure a place. A two grade head start for students who may very well then stuggle with their uni course... unless that too is dumbed down.

Out here in the real world, most of us can see that we've already got far more university graduates with dubious degrees than we can ever use. When last sighted - before the slump - unemployment among new grads was 8.2% and rising fast. And if you add in all the grads employed in non-graduate type jobs, the true figure is much higher.

As we've blogged many times (eg here), Labour's 50% uni participation target is absolutely bonkers. It is entirely arbitrary, and far higher than the 34.8% OECD average: when last sighted, the US was on 33.6% and Japan on 36.1%, both behind us on 39.3% (graduation rates - see here).

And it's not cheap. On top of the c£15bn pa direct cost to taxpayers for the courses, we are also losing all the output from these students. And that's both while they're at uni, and while they're tooling around for a year or two afterwards reconciling themselves to the awful truth that a degree from a UK uni is no longer a meal ticket.

Gah!

The real screaming priority is obvious to everyone out here. It's not more uni places for underperforming students. It's to improve the lamentable standards in our state schools.

Gove had better deliver on those school vouchers, that's all. Because the Major's starting to get very agitated.

PS Yes, we realise this may all be another wind-up from the Master of wind-ups. But the damage Labour has inflicted on our education system is all too real.

As you may know, His Magnificence himself was educated at a state grammar school in a leafy North London glade. But shortly after he left, the school was forced to go comprehensive, and as a 1200 pupil state education factory, it now struggles to produce good A Level results, scoring well below the national averages. Maybe HM might reflect on that as he's oiling his pecs out there in the sun.