Robin Wilton's esoterica

According to this Wikipedia article, Hermann Goering was not the source of the phrase "Whenever I hear the word 'culture', I reach for my pistol". Apparently the line originates from a play by Hanns Johst, and runs as follows:

"Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning": "Whenever I
hear 'culture'... I release the safety-catch of my Browning!"

The word 'culture' doesn't do it for me - but if I had a Browning, the word 'discourse' might. By way of justification, I offer the following exemplar:

"It's possible to have a passionate conversation about a book that one hasn't read, including perhaps especially with someone else who has not read it.

The discourse on books that have not been read places us at the heart of a creative process which leads us to their origin."

Prof. Pierre Bayard, quoted in The Times, Monday Feb. 5th 2007

Prof. Bayard has even written a book. It's called "How Do You Talk About Books You Haven't Read?". I'm sure you wouldn't expect me to say anything other than that I have not read it. If deconstructivists had any sense of irony, that would raise a wry smile.

I've blogged a couple of times before about the perverse recycling scheme currently operating where I live; the weirdness continues, according to this week's edition of the local paper. Last time I wrote about this, it was at least still possible to dispose of some of our (cardboard) packaging waste by tearing it up and adding it to the 'green waste' bin.

Now, it seems, we will no longer be allowed to do that. Cardboard and kitchen waste can no longer be put in the green bin, which can now only be used for biodegradable garden waste (of which, as you may remember, we have none anyway... because it goes onto our compost heap).  Instead, the council will be offering householders advice on... composting and where to buy compost bins.  What fantastic added value.

The justification they are claiming for banning cardboard is "new tougher regulations and standards", which is disingenuous. Domestic green waste has actually been a revenue-earner for someone - whether the council itself or its waste management sub-contractors - because it has been being used to produce commercially resellable compost. As the newspaper article notes, that compost is being produced to BSI and Soil Association standards - and apparently that is what is compromised by the proportion of cardboard and kitchen waste.

Here's the nonense, though, illustrated by two quotations from the article:

"Cardboard can take months to biodegrade, whereas the commercial compoiting process take twelve weeks." (?)

"Unlike other areas that use different techniques, [the council's] composting site does not have the facilities to process kitchen waste to the required standard."

So it's not that it can't be done, it's that the revenue from the last 18 months of free household compost has not been invested in keeping the facilities up to the standard needed to do the job.

So what are we expected to do with this waste now? Each household will now have to take its own cardboard to 'mini recycling centres'. So much for carbon neutrality. Not only that, but it turns out that those 'mini recycling centres' are actually the 'hoppers' which currently take bottles, cans and paper (which is vital, given the paltry size of the recycling crate we're provided with). Apparently they are now to be converted so that they take cardboard and plastic bottles instead. For goodness' sake! This isn't disposing of the garbage, it's just rearranging it.

As for kitchen waste, it "can no longer be collected". That's what it says; I'm assuming they mean that it will have to go into the grey bin, which means it will go to landfill or incineration. So much for recycling.

Recycling is one of those policy areas which critically depends on the active participation of the householder. Instead, we've had a scheme which doesn't address the public's needs, doesn't save on energy consumption, puts the workload on the householder, makes money off the proceeds, and then fails to re-invest so as to provide a workable service.

This has been a thoroughly flawed policy, badly conceived, and executed poorly without the transparency which the householders deserve.

The Conservative party has started to campaign more actively against the current ID Card plans, with measures including this website (plus petition), and a letter to potential suppliers from Shadow Home Secretary David Davis. The letter also went to Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary.

It's a pretty direct letter; it opens with a reference to the Conservatives' "unqualified" intent to cancel the ID Cards project should they gain power at the next election. It says that in the interests of '"courtesy and transparency", potential vendors may wish to evaluate their involvement carefully, in the light of this risk.

It closes by noting that a vendor "company's reputation is unlikely to be enhanced through involvement in a project, which squanders an enormous amount of public money in this way."

It has prompted a reply from John Higgins, director-general of UK IT trade association Intellect; among other things, he says:

"This public policy debate took place and was voted upon in Parliament. As an industry we are now working hard with the Identity and Passport Service to ensure that the ID cards procurement results in solutions which are practical and deliverable. To this end, we believe it is wholly inappropriate for the industry to be used as a mechanism for scoring political points.

Moreover, it is highly likely that the manner of this intervention will undermine the confidence of the supplier community in any future Conservative Government honouring other contractual commitments which may have been entered into by previous administrations. It will potentially make companies wary of entering into any public sector contracts at all."

Two things about this strike me as slightly strange.

First, if a government which commits to do one thing is voted out of office by a party which has committed to do the opposite, the idea that the latter needs to be bound by the contractual commitments of its predecessor is an odd one, isn't it?

Second, John Higgins appears to be at odds with one of his directors, Nick Kalisperas. According to the IT Week article I linked to right at the top:

IT trade association Intellect did not expect the Conservative campaign to
have much effect on IT suppliers, however.

“The letter is not likely to put off suppliers interested in bidding for ID
projects,” said Intellect director Nick Kalisperas. “They were already aware of
any risk factors involved.” 

Mr Davis' acknowledgement of Mr Higgins' letter has now been posted on a couple of websites including this one. It is, if anything, more forthright than the initial missive:

"I have received your letter of 6th February.

Your claim to be "neither for, nor against the policy of introducing ID cards in the UK", given the clear commercial interest of a number of your members, is simply disingenuous.

Your dismissal of the serious objections of principle we have to ID cards as point-scoring demonstrates a failure to appreciate either the parameters of the public debate on ID cards or the depth of opposition.

I am afraid that your claim that an honest assertion of our intentions is somehow indicative of a general commercial bad faith is both incredible and insulting.

Your thinly veiled threat of penalty clauses, at taxpayer's expense, is inappropriate and ill-judged. As the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has frequently recommended - certainly since my chairmanship - large IT projects should be segmented into several contractual phases to protect against the risks involved. I attach a copy of the PAC's 1999 Report, 'Improving the Delivery of Government IT Projects', which you might benefit from reading.

We are already fully engaged with the IT sector on these issues - and in my previous role as PAC chairman I was only too familiar with the IT sector's successes and failures in delivery of public services. You may be sure that we will have learned from those experiences."

Arguably, the more productive course of action for a self-avowed high-tech trade association might be to offer advice on best practice in the implementation of what they have to offer. At any rate, the reactions I've seen so far to Mr Higgins' letter do little to persuade me that it has advanced the interests of the industry.