Beth and I are now home after a great week in Northumberland, which included our 14th wedding anniversary.
Lindisfarne (click image for full size - edited and stitched with Aperture and Hugin)
It seems to us a wonderful yet much-neglected county, though it is apparently not neglected by the RAF!
I enjoyed two skydives at Weston on the Green this afternoon, in cloudless skies.
For the first, I floated out stable, looking up at the plane, before surveying from freefall the constituencies represented by John Howell MP and the Prime Minister. It’s a slightly flat landscape for my liking.
For the second, I exited sitfly before rolling onto my back. My transitions are still unstable and I back-flipped several times before spinning wildly upside down. Tunnel time required perhaps… I pulled high, 5500 ft, and enjoyed the view under canopy.
Not a bad way to relax – now to that email.
I have learned that the British Parachute Association’s magazine, Skydive, is featuring me next month, including this photo:
There’s a rumour that I may be the first skydiving MP. I don’t know if it is true but, in any event, I wish I had more time for it.
The sky is looking particularly spectacular at the moment. Hey ho – perhaps next weekend…
Yesterday, I was first publicly introduced as Wycombe’s MP. It is an awe-inspiring responsibility.
Unsurprisingly, this new back bencher was not called upon to advise the leadership over the weekend, so I was able to accept a couple of invitations, one to participate in the launch of Walk Wycombe and another to enjoy a concert by Wycombe Orpheus Male Voice Choir.
Walk Wycombe seems to divide opinion. On the one hand, volunteers and participants clearly enjoyed one another’s company and the opportunity to promote a sociable activity which is good for individuals, the environment and the town. On the other, some commentators have complained about the cost. Walking is so obviously a good thing, particularly around High Wycombe, that I am slightly surprised an initiative is required to promote it, but it seems this is so. Public health is not all it might be and we are all carrying the cost. Since the investment has been made, let’s make the most of it.
Wycombe Orpheus Male Voice Choir and their guest performers gave a magnificent evening’s entertainment to a full house. The programme was deeply moving. The Impossible Dream was impishly dedicated to all those for whom the election result was not all they hoped, of which, more on another occasion.
And to be introduced in the theatre to so many people as their representative at a time like this, well, it certainly puts steel in your backbone.
Today, a civic service and the presentation of a chess prize. After exchanging a gesture of peace with my LibDem opponent and speaking positively with a good number of people after the service, I can’t help wondering if politics was rather gentler before the Internet.
Tomorrow, we have a meeting of the Parliamentary Conservative Party and my involvement in events begins in earnest.
Courtesy of We7.com:
I would have included more Rage Against the Machine but their language is distinctly unparliamentary.
Update: One BFP reader felt this was a little frivolous in the context of our floundering economy. I recommend my economics posts.
On Tuesday, we paused the campaign for the Party’s social action day, which allowed us to get involved with a good local charity. We were very glad to join the Oasis Project with Pastor John Richards.
The Lane End Oasis Centre is a good news story which is set to roll out to other communities in Wycombe. The project began when a youth group became difficult to manage and it was decided to teach young people practical skills with a view to getting them into further training and employment. It now serves everyone around Lane End — an area which has had its difficulties — irrespective of age, ethnicity, beliefs, disability, gender, marital status or sexual orientation.
The project is an inspiration, with local partners providing the use of facilities and directly supporting a range of courses, including plumbing, painting, car mechanics, literacy and garden maintenance:
The garden maintenance course is linked to St Katherine’s at Parmoor, a retreat run by the Sue Ryder Fellowship, where young people have been restoring a rose garden as a sensory experience for the blind.
The Project recently began debt counselling and is now working to extend its courses to include electrical, cooking and housekeeping courses. It is also extending its scope into High Wycombe in Micklefield, Disraeli and Castlefield.
Wycombe Conservatives and I are most grateful to Pastor John, the Oasis Project and St Katherine’s for the opportunity to contribute to the project and learn more about it. I don’t doubt that the Big Society can work — the proof is in Lane End and is spreading across Wycombe.
UK Public Debt To GDP (via BIS)
A joke doing the rounds by email at the moment1:
While walking down the street one day a Member of Parliament is tragically hit by a truck and dies. His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St Peter at the entrance. ‘Welcome to heaven,’ says St Peter, ‘Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we’re not sure what to do with you.’ ‘No problem, just let me in,’ says the man. ‘Well, I’d like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we’ll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity.’ ‘Really, I’ve made up my mind. I want to be in heaven,’ says the MP. ‘I’m sorry, but we have our rules.’ And with that, St Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.
The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him. Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people. They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne. Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly and nice guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go. Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises…
The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him. ‘Now it’s time to visit heaven.’ So, 24 hours pass with the MP joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns. ‘Well, then, you’ve spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity.’ The MP reflects for a minute, then he answers: ‘Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell.’
So St Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. Now the doors of the elevator open and he’s in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above. The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder. ‘I don’t understand,’ stammers the MP. ‘Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time.. Now there’s just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?’
The devil looks at him, smiles and says, ‘Yesterday we were campaigning … Today you voted.
But who now rides on whom?
Which is most amusing but it also gives me an excuse to mention public choice theory:
Public choice in economic theory is the use of modern economic tools to study problems that are traditionally in the province of political science. From the perspective of political science, it may be seen as the subset of positive political theory which deals with subjects in which material interests are assumed to predominate.
In particular, it studies the behavior of politicians and government officials as mostly self-interested agents and their interactions in the social system either as such or under alternative constitutional rules. These can be represented a number of ways, including standard constrained utility maximization, game theory, or decision theory. Public choice analysis has roots in positive analysis (“what is”) but is often used for normative purposes (“what ought to be”), to identify a problem or suggest how a system could be improved by changes in constitutional rules.[1]
That is, in a nutshell, for a very long time, that joke has been a reasonable characterisation of politics and the consequence is the catastrophic public debt projection above. The Wikipedia article is somewhat biased against the theory and lacks citations but it is still worth reading.
Now, consider this:
What is that change? Some promise solutions from on high – but real change comes from collective endeavour. So we offer a new approach: a change not just from one set of politicians to another; from one set of policies to another. It is a change from one political philosophy to another. From the idea that the role of the state is to direct society and micro-manage public services, to the idea that the role of the state is to strengthen society and make public services serve the people who use them. in a simple phrase, the change we offer is from big government to big Society.
And this:
The era of big government has run its course.
The former is from the Conservative manifesto and the latter from David Cameron’s Hugo Young lecture on the Big Society. One party is telling people clearly that we need a radical change in the relationship between people and government. It is the Conservative Party.
It turns out The Prisoner is being remade, but it’s not all good news. Via Why The Prisoner remake is dire – Times Online.
Here’s the good news about the remake of The Prisoner that’s heading to ITV screens this month: you get to see what Ian McKellen, who plays Number Two in Patrick McGoohan’s Orwellian dystopia, would look like if they ever cast him as a Bond movie villain. The answer is he’d be slyly, sinisterly magnificent. And the bad news? The bad news is that this is pretty much the only good news about this venture.
What a pity. It’s one of my favourite series. Here’s why:
Beth and I were delighted to watch Wanderers beat Millwall 1-0 this afternoon in an exciting match.
Congratulations to the Chairboys!
Via www.zerohedge.com and econstories.tv, the choice in economics explained through the medium of music:
One kind Christmas gift was Churchill’s Wit: The Definitive Collection. I am particularly savouring this gem (1906):
For my own part I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities which he excites among his opponents. I have always set myself not merely to relish but to deserve thoroughly their censure.
I expect that will keep me going through the heat of the fires of unreason of the statist left.
A friend recently sent me this celebrated letter on the absurdity of bureaucracy. If you have not seen it, enjoy:
Rt Hon David Miliband MP
Secretary of State.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA),
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London
SW1P 3JR16 July 2009
Dear Secretary of State,
My friend, who is in farming at the moment, recently received a cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs.. I would now like to join the “not rearing pigs” business.
In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on, and which is the best breed of pigs not to rear? I want to be sure I approach this endeavour in keeping with all government policies, as dictated by the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy.
I would prefer not to rear bacon pigs, but if this is not the type you want not rearing, I will just as gladly not rear porkers. Are there any advantages in not rearing rare breeds such as Saddlebacks or Gloucester Old Spots, or are there too many people already not rearing these?
As I see it, the hardest part of this programme will be keeping an accurate record of how many pigs I haven’t reared. Are there any Government or Local Authority courses on this?
My friend is very satisfied with this business. He has been rearing pigs for forty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was £1,422 in 1968. That is – until this year, when he received a cheque for not rearing any.
If I get £3,000 for not rearing 50 pigs, will I get £6,000 for not rearing 100? I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to about 4,000 pigs not raised, which will mean about £240,000 for the first year. As I become more expert in not rearing pigs, I plan to be more ambitious, perhaps increasing to, say, 40,000 pigs not reared in my second year, for which I should expect about £2.4 million from your department. Incidentally, I wonder if I would be eligible to receive tradable carbon credits for all these pigs not producing harmful and polluting methane gases?
Another point: These pigs that I plan not to rear will not eat 2,000 tonnes of cereals. I understand that you also pay farmers for not growing crops. Will I qualify for payments for not growing cereals to not feed the pigs I don’t rear?
I am also considering the “not milking cows” business, so please send any information you have on that too. Please could you also include the current Defra advice on set aside fields? Can this be done on an e-commerce basis with virtual fields (of which I seem to have several thousand hectares)?
In view of the above you will realise that I will be totally unemployed, and will therefore qualify for unemployment benefits. I shall of course be voting for your party at the next general election.
Yours faithfully,
Nigel Johnson-Hill
Lane south of Wycombe on Christmas Day
What would you like to do at Holywell Mead? The Council wants to see the complex reopened as a leisure facility. The challenge is to make the mix of leisure activities exciting enough to make this a well used service that operates at no cost to you, the Council taxpayer, with, hopefully, all year round programmes to make Holywell Mead a vibrant attraction for all.
Until this year the Council operated two swimming pools at Holywell Mead, which were costing just under £80,000 to run each year, with additional costs for major repairs to the building and plant. Over a number of years declining numbers of visits were made to the outdoor pool. We would like to reverse this trend by providing a modern and inviting mix of leisure activities that will be popular with residents and visitors. To this end we are inviting local residents to tell us what they would like to do at Holywell Mead so that we can provide a facility that people will actually use.
Consultation starts on Monday 23 November and closes on Friday 22 January 2010.
You can access the consultation survey in a number of ways[...]
Participate here: Holywell Mead public consultation.
A serious breach of etiquette from The Prisoner:
In your heads must still be the remnant of a brain! In your hearts must still be the desire to be a human being again!
Shocking. I think I will just go and watch it to make sure.
"The heart & soul of biking."
Following a number of private meetings across the Wycombe constituency yesterday, from Fingest to the town centre, I had the pleasure of meeting Wycombe Motorcycle Action Group.
From MAG’s about page:
The Motorcycle Action Group, (MAG), is a voluntary organisation, drawing membership from across the whole spectrum of motorcycling.
Whatever you ride MAG has something for you!
MAG was born out of protest against legislation, introduced in 1973, making it compulsory to wear a crash helmet.
Since then MAG has evolved from a single issue group to a highly respected political lobbying and campaigns group which is central to all aspects of policy and legislation affecting motorcycling.
We covered a wide range of motorcycling and other issues (inevitably, MPs’ expenses!) but the overwhelming themes I perceived were that MAG campaigns for freedom and responsibility and that MAG members have, on the whole, well thought through and logically consistent views which go to the heart of what it means to live in a free society.
I believe we agreed, amongst other things, that:
It was a delight to spend the evening discussing how to live free and responsible lives. I am reminded of a quote attributed to Rose Wilder Lane:
Freedom means self-control; no more, no less.
I am glad to write that I have joined MAG.
Uploaded a new photoset to Flickr – Empuriabrava, Oct 2009:
Here’s another favourite – a well-formed 5-way formation, high above the canals of Empuriabrava:
Five-way assembling (click to enlarge)
Once the wind subsided, we had a great day. Eight jumps, knocked out as fast as possible: first an eight-way, then five-ways when three lads left for the airport.
More photos when I’m not behind a filter blocking flickr.
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