Covering the 1920s to the 1970s in England, some recent research of mine uncovered images of disabled people marching for jobs and rights in the 1920s and 1930s, including marches to London at the same time as the better-known Jarrow March. This radical tradition has been continued up to the present day with disabled people demonstrating for full civil rights. The research includes case studies of:
NLBD – the National League for Blind and Disabled People from 1920s; DDA – the Disabled Drivers Association from 1940s; and
MDA – Manchester Disabled Athletes, a sports club from 1970s.
For me, this reseach was a labour of love. I hope it helps to dispel the assumption that radical campaigning by disabled people for civil rights did not start until sometime in the 1960s or the 1970s. The struggle has a much longer history, even though the historical record of such campaigns is fragile and sometimes hard to uncover.

Book:

Unacknowledged Traces: exploring through photographic records the self-organisation of disabled people in England from the 1920s to the 1970s. ISBN 978-0-9572606-2-7 (2012) 168pp.

Unacknowledged Traces – Tony Baldwinson (2012)

Based on an MPhil thesis, University of Sunderland
Free as pdf and via preview at Google Books.

Previous discussions here have discussed how EU procurement laws allows for the requirement and measurement of ‘local performance’, subject to safeguards about not discriminating against firms from anywhere in the EU. The example often given is where the successful firm must have or create a local office.
But how can we establish and measure a Local Performance Indicator (LPI), so that we can evaluate just ‘how local is project X’?
There are some existing methods such as Local Multiplier 3 (LM3) which measures how much of the currency spent locally stays in local circulation and how much leaves the area. A difficulty with the LM3 method is that it is necessary to measure the local spending performance details of the workforce and of the contractors’ suppliers as well as the project or contracted activity itself.
Therefore, an alternative method is suggested here which is more self-contained and therefore operationally easier to implement.

Formula 1. LPI(x) = [sum {payroll(x), suppliers(x), taxes(x)} / total expenditure] where x is the distance from the project centre.

Formula 2. Suppliers(x) = [goods, services, leases, interest payments, fees and charges, franchise and IP use charges, head office remittances](x)

The LPI is therefore expressed as a % of total expenditure that is made within distance x of the project centre, based on invoice addresses and staff home addresses, not temporary accommodation.

LOCALITY
For ease of making standard comparisons and also for ease of calculations the following six distance bandings are suggested:

Formula 3.
LPI-3 <= 3km
LPI-10 <= 10km
LPI-50 <= 50km
LPI-R <= Region, Province, Nation (NUTS 1)
LPI-S <= State
LPI-U <= Union (USA, EU, etc)
Note 1: LPI-W which would be for World would always be 100% Note 2: NUTS is the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics

A strength of these formulae is that they can be fully answered by an entity’s payroll and accounting system plus GIS software for distances between two postcodes, zip codes, etc. The use of absolute distances also has the advantage over using administrative boundaries that trans-national comparisons are easily made. For example, the State level comparisson alone could refer to all of Germany or all of Luxembourg, but the two are very different.
A criticism of this formula could be that it does not measure the Keynesian local multiplier, that is how much of that local expenditure (eg <=3km) continues to be retained and re-spent within the locality. However this is resolved by the suppliers to Project X also measuring their LPI. Further, this LPI allows for direct comparisons with other projects, contracts etc because the radius of locality is defined by the bandings rather than ad-hoc.
Thus we might expect a public body in advertising a tender to, for example, ask applicants to state their LPI-3 figures for similar and recent contracts already underway; or to make some performance payments based on results for each year where the contract’s LPI-50 exceeds a stated %.
We may also see private sector clients wanting to include an LPI as part of their supply chain criteria for awarding their contracts, being part of their self-adopted Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting requirements.

(c) 2013 all rights reserved.
Use by social enterprises allowed pro bono if with prior permission, attribution and this same rights notice.

The proposed EU budget for payments during 2014-2020 to be €908bn has yet to be agreed by the European Parliament, and MEPs have already signalled their disagreement with the figure agreed between governments last week. Some in parliament are threatening to hold the ballot in secret to reduce the impact of pressure from each government on ‘their’ MEPs. The European Commission, who wanted over €1tn to be agreed, are none too happy either. Is there a decent case for a higher budget?
To provide some context, in just six weeks in 2008 the USA spent $1.1tn towards saving the banks: this equivalent EU budget has to last over 60 times longer; yet deal with the real-world aftermath of the banking crisis across Europe’s regions as well as usual business.
There was a strong case for EU regional policy even before the global banking crisis in 2008 and the Eurozone crisis from 2011. Writing in 2007, Harvey Armstrong notes that imbalance in wealth between the richest and poorest EU region was by a factor of over 12 and in unemployment rates it was by a factor of 10. The recent economic recession will have made these imbalances worse, especially in terms of youth unemployment.
The classic economic approach to regional imbalances between different countries is a choice between (a) currency exchange rate movements, usually a devaluation to make the region more competitive, and (b) transfers of funds from richer regions through public spending on benefits, services, infrastructure and subsidy.
In right-wing politics there is also a third approoach: (c) to require incomes in the poorer regions to drop in order to attract companies to relocate from richer regions on cost grounds. The three problems with this more-low-income approach are that: the markets for the sales made by companies remains mostly in the richer regions so there are higher transport costs; the richer regions have clusters of supply chains and skills which companies rely on and cannot be moved; and that people in the poorer regions, especially those with high skills, will leave in large numbers to work in richer regions, leaving the poorer region even more dependent on money transfers, both private and public.
So, going back to the two choices of exchange rate devaluation or transfer funding, the problem for countries with poor regions which are within the eurozone is that devaluation is currently not an option. However, if the transfer funding to assist regional development is insufficient, then the pressure for countries with the poorest regions to take a radical step and leave the eurozone may become unstoppable.
Another radical approach would be to concentrate the EU regional funds on the very poorest areas, similarly to the existing Cohesion Fund, and to argue that countries elsewhere (‘the north EU’ in crude terms) must deal with their regional imbalances themselves. For the UK this would increase our net contribution and for poorer regions in the UK it would leave them to rely on funds from Westminster alone.
Throughout the EU, not just in northern countries, public opinion is moving away from supporting the EU project. If the choice is between staying in a job and staying in the euro, we should not be surprised to see growing public pressure in poor regions to leave and devalue.
Finally, there is the distant option of modifying value added tax. VAT is known to be itself regressive, taking proportionately more funds from poorer regions than richer ones. Poorer regions could pay less or zero VAT, similar to existing EU arrangements for the ‘outermost regions’, however this would alter the net contributions of richer countries, itself a strong political issue. Book:
Harvey Armstrong, (2007) Regional Policy, (in) Ali M. Agraa, The European Union: Economics and Policies, 8th Edition, Chapter 22 pp421-440.

The total reported EU Budget was agreed last week by the summit of heads of government and state at €960bn for commitments and €908bn for payments, plus a further €37bn for off-budget items such as disaster zones emergency relief. This proposed settlement now has to be agreed by the European Parliament.

One new budget item that was reduced late in the negotiations, called Connecting Europe, is down from a proposed €40bn, cut by €11bn to €29bn. This is to fund transnational high speed rail and broadband. However, other infrastructure budgets, including some rail and technology, have been reportedly increased.

The Financial Times, 9/10 February, has reported that the budget areas for research and innovation have increased by nearly 40%.

Regional development funds are also reported as increased by the BBC and Financial Times.

In terms of the wider politics, the member state that most closely achieved its stated position in the negotiations was Germany, holding the EU Budget to within 1% of the total Gross National Income of all EU members.

The UK remains a net contributor at €4.7bn/year at 2011 prices, after a rebate of €3.6bn/year, set to decrease over the period 2014-2020.

The EU Budget has two key types of expenditure: payments and commitments. The second has a higher ceiling and allows for spending commitments to be made above the payments budget (‘over-programming’) to allow for phased payments, continuity between budget periods, delays and withdrawals.

Interestingly, by some reports it is possible to compare the budgets for prior and future commitments and show that the EU budget would continue to grow over the next seven years, although this is not also true for payments.

(updated 12 February 2013)

A campaign by engineers is being launched this week for more UK infrastructure spending. The cost of government borrowing by issuing bonds is at its lowest rate in modern times. The Deputy Prime Minister has said that infrastructure spending since 2010 remains too low, with estimates that the coalition government cut its capital spending over £8billion further than Labour had planned.
“The Government is missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest in big construction projects and risks letting national infrastructure wither through underspending, one of Britain’s foremost industrialists has warned. Sir John Parker, the President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, is also calling for a resurection of the Infrastructure Planning Commission, a short-lived innovation of the previous Labour administration that was scrapped by the coalition. Next week Sir John … will launch the institution’s campaign to get the Government to put engineering at the heart of its growth strategy.” The Times, 9 February 2013, p67.
There can be a class snobbishness about engineers – not quite the same grade as, say, a doctor or architect; and worse than that, a vocational career which is still sometimes seen as second-best, as coming from a lack, a deficit. So let’s hear it for engineers and for engineering.
There should be more women engineers, more recruits from Black and ethnic minority communities, and including more disabled people and people from the LGBT community. Perhaps it needs a celebrity engineering professor on television to provide a role model to encourage more young new entrants. Brunel was good, but he is getting a bit old now.
The German system of a respected ladder of qualifications for vocational trades including engineering underpins their success in manufacturing and construction. We should take a similar approach to engineering and construction skills in the UK.

Reading Andrew Marr’s book, My Trade, is a useful reminder of the shadier and at times brutal aspects inside British journalism (and wishing him a speedy recovery).
Covering the broadsheets as well as tabloids, he particularly looks at the Parliamentary Lobby system and how editors and proprietors set their political stall out, as well as starting with a fascinating history of journalism since the 1700s.
For any colleges teaching journalism looking for a good case study in political reporting, they could do worse than the Daily Mail’s flattering coverage of Michael Gove’s announcement as UK Secretary of State for Education that the government was withdrawing its proposal for an Ebacc (English Baccalaureate) to replace GCSEs. The reason for the U turn?
Not as nearly all the other media outlets have suggested, a widespread opposition from professional bodies, trade unions, and various expert organisations. No, the reason is “EU procurement laws” according to the Daily Mail, 8 February 2013. Really?
One part of the proposals was to have just one examination board for the Ebacc, based on the argument that the current range of examination boards for GCSEs has created grade inflation because schools shop around for the easiest exams.
But these exam boards are independent of government, and if anything from the EU has protected them from abolition it is the EU Single Market law which limits state powers against other organisations.
Not such a good headline there, so instead the issue is fudged with EU procurement references instead. So much for education! Book:
My Trade, by Andrew Marr (2004).

Within the Greater Manchester Low Carbon Economy network there is a Product and Process Innovation Group on low carbon buildings, with a series of talks for interested people in the built environment.
Within this group we are currently looking at monitoring and measuring energy performance, for a talk possibly in the late Spring. The group has already done some excellent work on the nine main archetypes of houses and flats found in Greater Manchester, guided by its Chair Tom Rock and its Secretary Shona Thomas.
Knowing these nine main types (semi, terrace, etc) it has been possible to map the most effective improvements (loft insulation, themostats, etc) for each one so that any funding available can be optimally spent, and it becomes possible to know the cost of, say, all homes being at least at ‘Band’ or Level C.
The next step is to measure actual performance in terms of energy. Elderly people in particular are strongly advised to keep at least one room in their home at 21C to avoid hypothermia and related illnesses. So, how much would this cost a week, given that some homes are cosy and some as like freezers?
The Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) that we see in estate agents blurb is theoretical – EPCs say what should happen. For many public buildings there is also a Display Energy Certificate (DEC) where we can find out what really happens, better or worse, as well as what it should be. The task is how to roll out this approach at a greater scale, especially for poorer households who may be going cold to save money, where some extra insulation (or whatever) could even be a lifesaver.
Some solutions will require staff time and equipment to measure room sizes, temperatures, and so on. However, there may also be some merit in looking at how much performance data can be easily gathered by residents themselves, their friends and family, and by volunteers, school projects, and non-housing staff who come to visit. This reduced data set could include, especially in the winter time: (a) postcode (to find out the outdoor temperatures from Met Office data); (b) the type of house or flat (semi, terrace, etc);
(c) the gas and electricity readings twice (eg 7 days apart); (d) the timer and thermostat settings; and
(e) the number of rooms heated above 5C (frost protection setting).
This would show that ‘Household X’ uses Y kWh a week to keep 3 rooms at 18C when outdoors daytime is 4C. From this we can then focus on the worst hit for the earliest assistance, with home improvements and advice.
It isn’t a complete answer, but it is possibly a pragmatic starting point for gathering performance data at scale and within existing resources. Comments welcome.

Burning hydrogen gas is seen as a zero-carbon consumption, and some far-sighted people are looking at how best to innovate a zero-carbon production of hydrogen from sunlight. One can imagine the deserts of north Africa as massive areas of production, whether it is by concave mirrors or photovoltaic sheets or similar. But the problem with hydrogen is how to move it in bulk from A to B.
It is nothing like as ‘energy dense’ as oil, and if you try and liquify hydrogen the extreme temperatures and pressures required make it pretty much lethal. No tanker of liquified hydrogen could sail up the Thames – it would be far too dangerous, not least for the crews. Equally, long-distance pipelines would have to be unfeasibly enormous if this new hydrogen was to seriously replace oil at a global scale.
So, the innovation we are waiting for is to find a way to make hydrogen as energy dense as oil at normal pressure and temperature, thus making it transportable and a source of new revenue for hotter countries.
As a further twist, we can imagine some of these new hydrogen-from-sunlight areas also capturing some atmospheric carbon to produce methane, not for burning but to go on produce more complex hydrocarbons such as plastics and pharmaceuticals. Provided these plastics are not burnt later in life, we would then have a system of carbon capture and one of resource production combined.
Of course, nature already does this using plant leaves … but not in hot areas of natural water shortage.

This book by Eliane Glaser is a thorough yet readable analysis of how PR is dominating business and politics, to bad effect, and calls for a return to critical thinking and to making political choices. In particular she argues that ideology is still relevant and not old-fashioned, but that these days it is skillfully hidden behind PR.
As a flavour: ‘We inhabit a political and institutional culture where a neurotic emphasis on audit and measuring outcomes is disguising the fact that facts and evidence have ceased to matter.’ (p107) Book:
Get Real, by Eliane Glaser (2012) London: Fourth Estate.

This Thursday (7 Feb) sees the next EU summit where leaders from the 27 member states will try and negotiate the budget for the next seven years.
On past form the UK will not do as well as it might. We should learn from the last time, when the UK and some others agreed quite a low limit on all the large funding programmes, only to be then outflanked by a vote to protect the Common Agricultural Policy, leaving the brunt of the cuts to fall on other programmes for urban, industrial and remote areas.
However, the risk is that there is an overwhelming PR requirement to please the tabloids and back-benchers with a good ‘saving our rebate’ story; even if the result is to receive far less than before in return for paying just a little less in. A false economy.
And worse, it is the Treasury that will pay a little less in, while it is the urban, industrial and remote corners of the UK that will then receive a lot less in regional funds in return. Hopefully though, lessons have been learnt from last time.