Category Archives: Government

Britain, European Union, Government, Politics, Society

(In Brief) What are the UK’s Brexit Options?

BREXIT

The Chequers Plan – The Prime Minister has made clear that her July 2018 blueprint remains Britain’s negotiating position and expects her ministers in Cabinet to promote it.

But officials at No 10 know that if the EU continues to stonewall, the internal Tory Party voices who have never liked the deal will only get louder. The agreement would see the UK collect tariffs on behalf of the EU and follow a “common rulebook” for goods but not services.

Canada – Canada’s free trade deal with the EU came into force last October, following seven years of negotiation.

It grants preferential access to the single market without signing up to the EU’s four fundamental freedoms – goods, services, capital and labour.

It removes 99 per cent of customs duties and trade tariffs, but it would not give British financial services the access to the EU market they currently enjoy and does not solve the Northern Ireland border question.

Norway – Under the Norway model, the UK would sit alongside Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein as part of the European Economic Area (EEA).

It would give Britain the freedom to strike trade deals with countries around the world. But free movement of people would continue, which would be unacceptable to many Tory Eurosceptics.

No Deal – The nuclear option. But the Prime Minister has repeated her pledge in the last few days that “no deal is better than a bad deal”.

Britain would make a clean break from the EU and fall back on its membership of the World Trade Organisation. It could also save Britain paying the £39 billion “divorce bill”.

Blind Brexit – This would involve a vague November statement on future trade in a bid to finalise the divorce payment and transition deal. The details of the future trading relationship would be sorted out at an unspecified later date.

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Britain, Business, Economic, Government, Society, Technology

The rise of automated robots is creating fear in the workplace. But why?

ECONOMIC & TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES

WE shouldn’t be surprised if trade union’s such as the TUC is waxing lyrical about how robots and new technology will liberate us all to work less for the same money.

After all, no less an authority than Karl Marx claimed automation would help free the miserable proletariat from their mundane drudgery.

John Maynard Keynes predicted in his 1930 Essay, Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren, that technology would allow people to work no more than 15 hours a week. “Three days a week is quite enough,” he opined. Keynes didn’t have any grandchildren, but if he had, it’s highly unlikely they would be basking in hours of leisure time.

Employment in the UK is at its highest since 1974, when ABBA won the Eurovision song contest and we actually did have a three-day week (but for all the wrong reasons).

Not everyone sees the advance of robots and technology in the workplace, in warehouses, manufacturing plants or even in new possible areas such as care homes, as a good thing. Fears that machines will make humans redundant or enslave us are as old as technology itself. Crackpot ideas such as Amazon’s robot-driven cage for its employees – now mercifully ditched – is an example that doesn’t exactly help.

In a fascinating speech on the future of work, Bank of England governor Mark Carney said that, in the past, machines substituted for “hands” or manual labour. Now artificial intelligence means they might replace “heads” or brain work, leaving “hearts” to people – or, in other words, work that involves emotion, imagination, innovation, caring and creativity, which could translate into more fulfilling work that adds value to the economy.

 

HISTORY tells us automation does not take away human work, but simply shifts people from one type of work to another.

One of the biggest technological revolutions receives virtually no attention from economists because it has mainly affected women. But, by making housework so much easier, the spread of domestic appliances such as vacuum cleaners and washing machines has arguably changed the workplace and society as much as the smartphone.

The idea that robots will take employment away from humans rests on the “lump of labour” fallacy that there are a fixed number of jobs in an economy, so if a robot takes one, a human being will be consigned to the dole queue. In reality, however, it is not like that. Economies are dynamic, so if robots add to productivity and growth then more, not fewer, jobs will be created for humans.

This doesn’t mean the introduction of technology will be seamless. Overall, technology may be beneficial, but individuals can and do lose out if their jobs are taken over by machines and they are not able to find alternative employment quickly.

What Keynes ignored in his analysis is that many of us, probably including himself, have workaholic tendencies and absolutely don’t want to be idle.

For anyone who wonders why multimillionaire chief executives don’t just put their feet up and enjoy their loot, think of it this way: the higher paid someone is, and the more status and admiration they glean from their work, the less incentive they have in taking more leisure time.

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European Court, Government, Legal, Society

ECHR ruling: Intelligence agencies can harvest data

PERSONAL DATA COLLECTION

Controversial powers that have been used by British spies to hoover up vast amounts of personal information to help foil major terrorist plots do not automatically breach human rights, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.

It said UK intelligence agencies could scoop up data belonging to millions of citizens if there were proper safeguards and supervision.

Judges said harvesting and storing data on the websites people visited, who they called, texted or emailed, and their medical, tax and financial records was not “in and of itself” unlawful.

The ruling will be a boost to the Government, which says collecting “bulk data” and communications information has been crucial in preventing jihadist plots.

Ministers brought in the Investigatory Powers Act last year to tighten up the UK’s use of sweeping surveillance powers and introduced new oversights.

However, the ECHR found that the previous spying regime – exposed by Edward Snowden’s revelations about intelligence techniques – did violate human rights.

In 2013, Mr Snowden revealed that GCHQ, the UK’s eavesdropping agency, had been secretly collecting communications sent over the internet on an industrial scale.

The ECHR judgment said the system did not have any proper safeguards because it led to completely “untargeted” collection of information.

It ruled this had violated Article 8 and Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights – safeguarding privacy and confidential journalistic material.

The court’s ruling related to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act which was replaced by the new Act at the start of 2017.

The court acknowledged that this act makes significant changes to the interception and communications data regimes, though critics call it a “turbocharged snoopers’ charter”.

The British Government has said it would give “careful consideration” to the ruling.

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