They make an unanswerable case that many Equitable Life policy holders lost money as a direct consequence of regulators failing to keep close enough scrutiny of the company and act on the the risks and problems that they either had, or should have, identified.

The list of the regulatory failures includes:

• Allowing the combination of the roles of Chief Executive and Appointed Actuary between 1991 and 1997
• The failure to adequately scrutinise Equitable Life’s returns and accounting policies and the value of its liabilities from 1990 onwards
• The failure to act on the problems of the differential terminal bonus policy - and the overbonusing of some investors at the expense of others
• The failure to force Equitable Life to create a contingency fund to cover the risk of losing the Hyman case - which challenged Equitable Life policies and, if lost, would leave them open to massive liabilities
• The decision to allow Equitable Life to keep trading after losing the Hyman case

It’s clear that many policy holders have been badly let down by regulators, have suffered financial loss as a result and deserve compensation for the losses caused by the failings of the regulator.

Vince Cable has taken a very strong line on this:

After eight years and 13 reports it’s time for the Government to finally admit that it comprehensively failed to regulate Equitable Life properly.

For years ministers have acted like they were in a castle under siege, hoping that Equitable Life policy holders would give up and go away. Today’s report shows that, rightly, this is not going to happen.

Gordon Brown has overseen a complete and repeated failure of regulation spanning a decade. The outrage expressed by policyholders over this ’serial regulatory failure’ is entirely justified.

After months of dragging its feet, the Government needs to accept the Ombudsman’s recommendation that ‘wrongs should be remedied’.

If ministers choose to disregard this report, as they have done over tax credits and occupational pensions, it will be the final nail in the coffin for the Ombudsman’s credibility.

These are large sums of money, especially at a time when belts are being tightened. Gordon Brown must now admit fault and apologise to policyholders.

It is critical that the Government now sets out a credible, transparent and independent process to enter into a dialogue with policy holders over compensation.

He’s also written an excellent article on the topic at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/07/11/cccable111.xml

Policy holders fully deserve fair compensation after this appalling maladminstration over more than 10 years.

After all the work getting Church Lane’s speed limit in place and approved, and putting up the signs, you’d think the trees could have been cut back so that people could actually see them!

Peter Mason is on the case. I’ve also reported it at FixMyStreet and the County Council website.

Peter has also requested a flashing sign to help clearly establish the new speed limit in the mind of regular users of Church Lane.

The problem is that their survey doesn’t include enough people from the city itself. As a consequence, the results are totally misleading.

Even though half the people in the district live in or near Winchester, only 2 of the council’s 7 consultation meetings – the ones in the Guildhall and in Littleton – were in or near Winchester.

As a result, only around 1 in 5 of those they asked to complete their survey came from the Winchester area – a much smaller proportion than they would need for the survey to be representative.

The public meeting held in Winchester and the Lib Dem survey of Winchester residents showed that most people in the town are opposed to ’step change’. They also don’t favour building on Barton Farm.

Part of the problem has been the Conservatives’ continuing weak management of the consultation process for the ‘Local Development Framework’.

They originally proposed only one meeting in Winchester in a room that would have seated 120 people. Lib Dem and public pressure managed to get a second meeting at Littleton and to get the city meeting moved to a larger room, but it still was too little too late.

The Conservatives should not conclude that Winchester wants a step-change or to build on Barton Farm based on a small unrepresentative sample. It would be completely wrong to decide anything until they give proper weight to the views of residents in the city itself.

Surveys are still coming in and we are still collating the full results, but Mark already used the early results in a debate on the cost of living on July 9th.

All the survey responses to date have helped give a clear picture of the pressures that people locally are facing.

It’s a very long time since we’ve seen such rapid increases in food and fuel prices - combined with continued increases in council tax and fares. For obvious reasons, both Mark and I are very keen to see that the views and situation of local people are properly represented in Parliament.

If you want to read or see the speech Mark made referencing the survey, it’s available online at TheyWorkForYou.com.

If you’re interested in getting a copy, here are some links:

• Nudge - by Robert Thaler
• Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely
• The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert Cialdini

Here’s a link to the Cabinet Office paper titled Personal Responsibility and Changing Behaviour referenced in the Guardian article on ‘Nudge’.

Other works on behaviour change relating to climate change worth looking at… WinACC recently highlighted ‘Weathercocks and Signposts: The environment movement at a crossroads”. DEFRA’s Framework for pro-Environmental Behaviours is also useful reading.

This is not the same as a big local business going bust or moving to the other end of the country. No-one’s losing their job. No families will see a big drop in income. The jobs aren’t disappearing. They’re moving seven miles down the road to Chandler’s Ford. No local families will be forced to move away from Winchester and there will be no reduction in the number of police officers working out of North Walls.

People also spend most money where they live, not where they work, so the extra houses in the town centre are likely to help local business, not hurt it.

Looking at Winchester as a whole, one of our biggest problems is lack of housing, particularly affordable and social housing, rather than lack of jobs. Every day, 18,000 people commute into Winchester and 8,600 people commute out. Thousands of families are on the waiting list for social housing. The move will help address that imbalance, reduce commuting and help Winchester house more local people.

Importantly, we will get these extra houses, which count towards government targets, without being forced to build on green fields.

Some businesses will be hurt by fewer people popping out to shop at lunchtime, but more will be helped by 294 more families living and shopping in the heart of Winchester. Overall, this move should be good for local business, good for local people and good for the local environment.

No big deal you might think. Clean and disinfect the wound. Check that tetanus is up to date. Get on with life.

But it reminded me of a sign I saw posted up while I was out in Sierra Leone a few weeks ago running some training for the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

There were a team of us from the Lib Dem, Labour and Conservative parties working with local council candidates from the SLPP, APC and PMDC to help them prepare for their local elections.

One afternoon, we went to the UN Guest House in Kenema, the third city of Sierra Leone, to see if they had any free accomodation nearer to where we were running our training and the following police press release, about dogs, was on the wall.

It’s an very vivid and interesting piece of writing. It paints a very recognisable, and, in some ways, bleakly funny, picture of how police, politicians and local people often interact. But at the heart of it is an awful reality. For many people in Sierra Leone, without access to adequate medical care, even in one of the country’s major cities, a dog bite can be a death sentence.

Here’s the press release:

PRESS RELEASE

FROM:    THE OFFICE THE LOCAL UNIT COMMANDER KENEMA DIVISION
TO:    THE GENERAL PUBLIC

POLICE HAS OBSERVED IN RECENT TIMES AN ESCALATION IN THE INCIDENCE OF STRAY DOG BITES IN THE KENEMA TOWNSHIP WHICH HAVE RESULTED INTO THE UNTIMELY DEATH OF THE INNOCENT VICTIMS, WHICH THE POLICE DEEPLY REGRET. POLICE HAS ALREADY BROUGHT THIS TO THE ATTENTION OF THE KENEMA TOWN COUNCIL TO GET RID OF THE STRAY DOGS TO END THE MENACE AS PEOPLE ARE NOWADAYS GRIPPED WITH FEAR AT THE SIGHT OF STRAY DOGS. CONSEQUENTLY, BANDS OF TEENAGERS HAVE ALSO GONE IN SEARCH OF STRAY DOGS, WHICH THEY KILL, ON SIGHT WITH STONES AND CRUDE INSTRUMENTS LEAVING THE STREETS LITTERED WITH THE DEAD DOGS. SOME PEOPLE HAVE ALSO SUSTAINED VARIOUS INJURIES INFLICTED BY THE YOUTHS IN THE PROCESS OF KILLING THE STRAY DOGS.MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC ARE WARNED TO RESTRAIN THESE TEENAGERS TO REFRAIN FROM PURSUING THESE DOGS AS THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR OTHER TEENAGERS WITH ULTERIOR MOTIVES TO JOIN THEM TO ENGAGE IN CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE PUBLIC AND MORE PEOPLE MAY ALSO BE INJURED BY THE INSTRUMENTS USED BY THE TEENAGERS. OWNERS OF DOGS ARE WARNED TO CONFINE THEIR DOGS IN THEIR HOMES SO THAT THEY WILL NOT BE PUBLIC MENACE. THE POLICE ARE WILLING TO ASSIST THE PUBLIC TO TRACK DOWN STRAY DOGS WHILST THE TIMELY INTERVENTION OF THE TOWN COUNCIL IS AWAITED TO DICISIVELY DEAL WITH THE SITUATION TO BRING RELIEF TO THE INHABITANTS OF KENEMA TOWNSHIP.

USMAN KAMARA [SUPT]
LOCAL UNIT COMMANDER - KENEMA DIVISION

Here’s a PDF of the original Kenema Police Press Release.

I don’t know which medical charities have particular activities in Kenema, but if you’d like to support improved medical care in Sierra Leone, you can donate to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) or Medical Assistance Sierra Leone.

Reassuringly, it doesn’t cost any more than the standard tariff from a non-green supplier.

We’ve had pictures of Mark and I waving low energy lightbulbs around before when we switched all the bulbs in our office.

Here’s one of the rare pictures from yesterday where we’re not all waving light-bulbs around - only one of us is:

On a more substantive note, the head of ecotricity has a thought-provoking blog at zerocarbonista.com. His view is that the biggest barrier to more wind energy in the UK is the planning system - not lack of feed-in tariffs:

Two thirds of all wind projects are refused by District Councils at the planning stage, and two thirds of all appeals are upheld by the government – a lot of bad decisions being overturned, eventually.

And wind energy is the only major generation source that depends for planning on District Councils – the government deals with all others for very good reasons. District councils are not up to the job, on the whole.

I’m loth to see any decisions move towards central government without a very good reason - overall, I’d like to see more local decision-making, not less - but there may be a case for making it a county council decision - like minerals and waste.

I’d also like to see CO₂ as an explicit factor in all relevant council and government decisions. Crediting new wind turbine developments against councils’ carbon targets could be another, more local, way to address the issue.

More on the zerocarbonista blog about feed-in tariffs and planning here.

Another green energy supplier used by Lib Dems (including our national office) is Good Energy.

I’m still skeptical, but Roger, the editor of http://2d-code.co.uk/ wrote to point me at the impressive Japanese experience with QR-codes - apparently 51% of Japanese mobile phone users use the barcode function.

Looking through his site, I liked the idea of linking the QR-code to a mobile facebook page and was inspired by this Harrods ad to create a QR-code for a Twitter sign-up SMS. Here are examples of each:

Another option is that QR-codes may be used for the VCF files used to exchange addresses between phones.  This article suggests linking to one of these files on a website - but I’m not entirely clear why you wouldn’t just put the whole address file into the QR-code as follows?

I popped along to the launch of the new Whizzgo car-club scheme at the Guildhall this morning.

As the Council’s press release says:

Car Club members will have access to a brand new Citroen car, for less than £5 an hour - including petrol, mileage, road tax, insurance, servicing, breakdown, recovery, maintenance and cleaning. What’s more, independent research shows that Car Club members can cut their total transport bills by half.

As well as cutting transport bills in half, separate studies have also demonstrated that the provision of Car Clubs results in a significant reduction in car miles driven, with members walking or cycling more, using public transport more often or simply re-arranging how they make journeys.

The first WhizzGo cars will be available for Car Club members in specially designated bays provided by Winchester City Council in their off-street car parks in Gladstone Street, Jewry Street, Colebrook Street and Middle Brook Street.

At this morning’s launch, they explained that joining Whizzgo also lets you use cars in Leeds, London, Brighton, Liverpool, Southampton, York, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Newcastle, Worcester, St. Albans and Belfast.

All in all, a very interesting offer.

Since my latest two car service bills alone have added up to more than my current car is worth (admittedly this is not a particularly high benchmark), it may now be the time to get rid of it and go with Whizzgo!

Back in January, following an invitation, I accompanied the RHCH Medical Director, Dr Kevin Stewart, on one of the daily ward rounds by the executive team to inspect the hospital environment and see that action is taken on areas that need work.

We spent two hours visiting the hospital - mainly in Florence Portal House - seeing the improvements that are being made and discussing the infection control programme.

I’ve been particularly interested in infection control for several years.  Earlier in my career, I was involved in setting up public hygiene programmes in developing countries - teaching mothers and children basic handwashing habits can have a dramatic effect on infant health and mortality -  and have previously met with experts in infection control to learn more about it.

It was very encouraging to see how totally committed the hospital’s management team and staff are to improving infection control and creating a culture of cleanliness within the hospital - and how hard the staff are working to improve things.  It was clear that their top priority is to get the essentials right: regular hand-washing and hand-sanitising - reducing unnecessary use of antibiotics - making the hospital easy to clean and keeping it clean.  I was amazed how many hospitals didn’t mention handwashing or sinks in the recent Panorama survey the BBC published alongside their ‘How clean Is your hospital’ programme (although RHCH did).  Hand sanitiser (essentially alcohol with bit of glycerin and perfume thrown in) is good as far as it goes, but, if there is any dirt on the hands, it is not as good as soap and water.

We also talked about their programme of ‘prescribing’ the insertion of cannulae. It’s been getting great results and it’s very good to see RHCH taking a national lead on finding innovative ways to go beyond the basics.

Most of the time, the best thing that politicians can do about the NHS is stay out of the way of local health professionals. The one area where they can need more support is in ensuring they have enough funding to pay for the right number of beds for the number of patients they have and to modernise the wards to make it easier to isolate people who get an infection.

I know Mark Oaten and I are committed to doing everything we can to make sure that the hospital has the funding and support it needs to do this.  As recently reported on Panorama, if beds are used too intensively, it can increase the risk of infection - even if everything else is done right.  It’s essential that the hospital gets the support it needs to keep reducing bed occupancy rates and to continue driving down infection rates.

Are these ever likely to take off? Should we start printing them on posters or business cards? I doubt it - but here’s a test image with a hidden message which you can use to send me your views.

• More votes and more seats in the Winchester District and the new Winchester constituency than the Tories
• Highest Lib Dem share of the vote in Winchester district or county elections since 1998 
• Swing from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats for the second year running

We knew that our campaign for a greener, fairer and safer Winchester was getting a strong response - and that people were reacting well to the strong record of our candidates - but getting the highest vote for 10 years was more than we expected!

The picture in the new Winchester Constituency was even better: 49% of the vote, vs only 43% for the Conservatives, and 12 out of 17 seats.  Unfortunately we missed winning Hiltingbury West by only 20 votes or it would have been 13 out of 17 seats.

Even if you include the latest results from the wards which weren’t up this year (which are all Conservative), we still beat the Tories by 48% to 44%.

Overall, a very encouraging night.  And a big thank you owed to all the people who worked so incredibly hard and, most of all, to all the people who voted for us on Thursday.

Post-note: I’ve just checked the County Results.  Our results outperformed those as well - so I’ve updated the post accordingly.

Conversations at various WinACC meetings, while out campaigning with Winchester Friends of the Earth for aircraft emissions to be included in the climate change bill (see above) and in Green’s after the monthly Winchester Friends of the Earth meeting have thrown up several interesting local environmental websites.

First off, there’s Dave Walker-Nix’s ‘One World’ website at http://www.wwn-oneworld.co.uk. Dave organised the Friends of the Earth aviation demonstration in the town centre (that’s him on the left wearing the mask).  His site has a collection of fascinating inventions for tackling climate change. Very thought provoking and well worth a read.

David Morgan turned up to his first WinACC open meeting last Saturday.  He has an environmental blog at http://www.reallifenews.com/environment/ as part of his real life news website with a local and personal take on living a greener lifestyle.

The Greening Oliver’s Battery team has set up a website at http://www.greening-ob.org.uk/.  It’s great to see Terena Plowright’s inspirational Greening Campaign starting to roll out across the area.

I served on the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Executive with Donnachadh McCarthy at the time of the Iraq War.  He’s now left party politics and is a full-time eco-auditor. He recently came to speak to WinACC about his work and to give advice on a greener lifestyle.  You can find out more at his website http://www.cix.co.uk/~dmccarthy/

The final site isn’t strictly an environmental site, but WinACC wouldn’t be what it is without the brilliant facilitation of James Martin-Jones. WinACC open meetings are fun, constructive, inclusive, positive and action-focused - and also run exactly to time (always 90 minutes!).  The next one is on June 7th.  Several people I spoke to after the last one commented on how much better they are than ‘normal meetings’.  This wouldn’t happen without James; you can find out more at http://jamesmartinjones.com/.

That’s it for now.  As I find more, I’ll post them up and add them to my links.

(Needless to say, none of these links imply that any of the sites, organisations or people mentioned endorse me or anyone else - they’re just sites I hope you find interesting)…

One piece of good news today.  The Government has made it clear that Micheldever Station is not going to be one of its new eco-towns.

I’m really pleased.  This was an eco-town proposal that wasn’t eco.  It was going to have an appalling effect on traffic congestion and emissions.  It was going to concrete over the countryside - rather than using brown field land as per the original specification.

In essence, it was a half-baked greenwash of a bad idea that had previously been repeatedly rejected.

Most of the credit for this belongs with the Dever Society and particularly their very impressive vice-chair, Tessa Robertson, who got a big round of applause today at the celebration meeting (or, more accurately, celebration walk across some fields that were threatened with being concreted over).

There was also huge public opposition.  The online petition against the proposed Micheldever Station eco-town got more support than any of the other petitions around the country opposing local eco-towns.

The Dever Society is intending to continue campaigning until Zurich Insurance and Eagle Star give up on their plans.  I certainly intend to keep doing what I can to support them. They need members and support: the more the better.  If you’d like to join, the membership form is here.

Winchester had a wonderfully gentle atmosphere on Friday evening.

Around 10,000 people (according to the Echo) were in the centre for the Winchester Passion.

The evening started at Oram’s Arbour and then moved to the Great Hall, followed by the Law Courts, then the High Street and Butter Cross, and finally the west end of the Cathedral.

David Spender has some great photographs of the event - and has set up a Flickr group for the Passion to pull together everyone else’s as well.

The following video (shot on a digital camera at quite some distance) is not great quality, but it does give a sense of the atmosphere outside the cathedral during the crucifixion scene.

Winchester Passion 2008

Question:

The Winchester Whisperer asks:

What about the LD abstention on the vote last night. If you’d been the MP for Winchester would you have abstained?

Answer:

No. I would have voted for a referendum.

I was a parliamentary candidate at the last election and this is what our manifesto promised:

MAKE EUROPE MORE EFFECTIVE AND DEMOCRATIC
Membership of the EU has been hugely important for British jobs, environmental protection, equality rights, and Britain’s place in the world. But with enlargement to twenty-five member states, the EU needs reform to become more efficient and more accountable. The new constitution helps to achieve this by improving EU coherence, strengthening the powers of the elected European Parliament compared with the Council of Ministers, allowing proper oversight of the unelected Commission, and enhancing the role of national parliaments. It also more clearly defines and limits the powers of the EU, reflecting diversity and preventing overcentralisation. We are therefore clear in our support for the constitution, which we believe is in Britain’s interest – but ratification must be subject to a referendum of the British people.

In response to the change from the Constitutional Treaty to the Lisbon Treaty, I personally see three possible lines of argument:

• It’s not the same as the Constitutional Treaty.  It’s a smaller revising treaty. So I’m not bound by my promise at the last election.
  
  • Although several people have argued that Lisbon has a different role and works a different way, see Quaequam Blog for an example, in the end, I’m not convinced - I think we need to compare the overall effect of the two treaties, not the way they work.  While I admit the two treaties are not identical, I don’t believe the end-point is different enough to justify a different response. If the start point is the same and the end point is nearly the same, then I don’t believe the intermediate step should be treated differently.
• I’ve changed my mind. I was wrong to propose a referendum on the EU Constitution - since I now think referenda are wrong for issues of this complexity.
  • There are definite issues with this particular referendum because it’s a complex treaty and there are many people and publishers who would be keen to turn the referendum into a ‘do you like what you’ve heard about the EU?’ vote. It would have been a major challenge to ensure the substance of the treaty was addressed.
  • However, in practice, the EU Constitution was, if anything, more complex than Lisbon, not less - the same problems would have applied - and I made a public commitment to supporting a referendum on that.  I’m also committed to a referendum on EU membership - so, while convenient, I also don’t think this argument stacks up (unless I’d genuinely had a Damascene conversion on referenda and also opposed the one on EU membership - and I haven’t and don’t).  I’ve also previously stated publicly my liking for the clause in the Swiss constitution permitting a ‘delete all and replace’ referendum if 100,000 people propose a new national constitution: a generic ‘anti all referendums’ line would not be true to my previously stated beliefs.
• We promised a referendum on a treaty on Maastricht, and on a treaty that takes us to almost the same point as Lisbon, so we should stick to our guns and vote for a referendum.
  • As I understand it, all the elements of the Constitutional Treaty we praised at the last election are still in the Lisbon Treaty. (I’m open to be corrected on this).
  • At least for me personally, the duck test therefore applies*. We need to treat the Lisbon Treaty in the same way we committed to treat the Constitutional Treaty. 

So, what would I have done in the Commons on Thursday night?

• I’d have voted for an in/out referendum
• I’d have voted for a Lisbon referendum

If they had passed, I’d then have campaigned for the UK to stay in the EU and for us to ratify the Lisbon treaty.

Is Lisbon enough?  No.  The EU still needs further reform to be more open, more accountable and more easy to understand for the peoples of Europe.

I once found a quote that summarised my feelings about the EU (and many other institutions) I think from Mill:

My love for an institution is in proportion to my desire to reform it.

There’s a lot to do to make Europe work better for British people: more open, more accountable, less fraud and waste, with stronger action on climate change and reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy.

But those are matters for a separate blog post.

* A strict user of the ‘duck test’ could argue that while Lisbon has a very similar end point to the constitutional treaty (’quacks like a duck’) it doesn’t look the same as the constitutional treaty (much shorter etc, not ‘delete all and replace’) - so it doesn’t actually ‘look like a duck’ and so the duck test doesn’t apply - but there’s been enough sophistry in this debate already.

All too predictably, Britain’s leading developers are using the eco-town template to dust off long-rejected proposals and re-submit shoddy housing schemes.

The potential loss of countryside around Micheldever is not the only problem with the proposed Eagle Star development. Despite the railway station, a large new eco-town equidistant between Andover, Winchester and Basingstoke will also be very bad for traffic.  There’s a good briefing from the Dever Society on the issue here.

My fears about Housing Minister Caroline Flint’s forthcoming decision on Micheldever are not just driven by concerns about the Government’s desire to be seen taking some symbolic ‘green’ action.  What worries me most is the combination of this desire to appear green with Labour’s love of large top-down solutions to any problem (in this case housing) and their strangely obsessive desire for approval by big business (in this case a company that has just appointed Tony Blair as an advisor on climate change).

All credit to the councillors of both parties (and none) who spoke and voted in favour of keeping the Stanmore as a community pub.

I’d built a website to help the campaign and the response it got showed how strongly people feel locally about keeping the Stanmore at the heart of the local community. After the officers recommended closure, a lot of people were telling us we didn’t have a chance. Sitting in the pub last night, preparing for today’s meeting, it felt like a last charge. Everyone, especially Glenn Sumner who spoke at the planning meeting on behalf of the Save The Stanmore campaign, was determined to give it their best shot.

Following through a link in Jonathan Calder’s Liberal England blog to an article about Greg Mulholland in the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, it turns out that we did it in CAMRA’s Community Pubs Week!

The CAMRA Community Pubs week website has a list of things to do to support the week, but I couldn’t find a reference to ’saving the pub from closure’!

The campaign isn’t over. It’s still possible that there could be an appeal - and so we’re still asking people to sign the petition in case we need their help again. But that doesn’t stop today being a very satisfying day indeed.

George Beckett and the Council have listened to local people and local businesses on the proposed parking changes and decided not to press ahead with ‘Pay and Display’ instead of ‘Pay on Foot’. All credit to them.

At the meeting, I took them through a survey we recently completed on parking: 94% of car park users that returned our survey were opposed to changing the system.

People like the current system.  It means they don’t have the same pressure to rush back to the car and it gives them more chance to stay longer in Winchester. And that, in turn, is good for local businesses.

It was clear from the survey that the problems with pay on foot have also been overstated.  Although a majority of people in the survey have had a problem at some point or another, it happens to most people very infrequently. And when things do go wrong, they told us that Winchester’s parking attendants do an excellent, prompt and effective job in sorting out problems in the overwhelming majority of cases.