Strikes

On Tuesday the 22nd and Thursday the 24th of March the UCU is having a general strike of lecturers in 47 universities to protest against...something that doesn't concern me in the slightest. However, the fact that they are striking is affecting my education as my lecturer is sodding off for the day. I pay £20.56 for every contact hour at uni (according to some rough, Andy-maths), so I would quite like that money back seeing as I am not getting the service that I paid for.

I do not, as a rule, agree with striking, I see it as akin to blackmail and think that that should only be done when people have done just plain stupid things (if you get caught having an affair and allow pictures to be taken, for example, you deserve it). But the lecturers are in no situation like this, they're just being whiny bitches.

And so, to the lecturers I say this: Shut up, do your job and stop stealing my bloody money. If you can't afford to survive off the pay that you are getting you shouldn't have gone into academia, should you?

Health Care

The final assessed essay that I have to write for my first year at Goldsmiths is for the Political Economy and Public Policy Module, and from the range of questions provided I have chosen to answer the one about health care in the UK and who should decide on its funding.

Health care spending is one of the largest areas where British taxpayer money goes, and so how it is spent is a highly contentious issue; people, obviously, want to get the most for their money. The down-side, though, is that how much is spent on what is ultimately decided by politicians.

Churchill said that, "it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." I happen to agree with this. Democracy is inefficient, prevents a government from doing what's in the best interests of the people and generally fails at most things. This is seen perfectly in health care.

Politicians have to battle between getting the best value for money and satisfying the irrational voters who are being driven by emotion rather than economic sense. Everyone can see the point of not paying massive amounts of money to extend an 80 year old's life by a couple of years, but this stops when the 80 year old is their parent - then no cost is too much. And so politicians, who are constantly thinking of re-election, are forced to make decisions that are not in the best interests of the country and its people.

For this reason MPs are among the most ill-suited people to decide on health-care spending. Doctors, economists and other people with relevant experience but, most importantly, no democratically given right to decide should be the ones to decide. This does not necessitate making it an entirely un-democratic process: the experts who manage how the money health care is granted should be chosen by the democratically-elected government (which, in Britain and especially with the coalition government, is an issue for another day), however beyond that they should sod off and leave the chosen ones to make rational, cost-effective conclusions. As they have no major concerns about job-security they will be able to make these decisions without worrying about the consequences.

Too much at the moment is decided by MPs. The Chancellor should decide how much money is to be spent on health care, set down some vague guidelines if they want to (got to keep them busy so that they don't kick off), but then it should be left to pros in the NHS and some economists where money should actually be spent, thus ensuring that there will be the greatest benefit for at least a reasonable cost. Unfortunately in this system, some people are denied health care (as already happens), but the public purse is not infinite, and sometimes there is simply no way around it.

"Eat right, exercise regularly, die anyway."

- Author Unknown

For Harry, England and St George!

Goldsmiths students are, on the whole, anti-war. I count myself among them on this issue. War is a horrific environment that I will count myself lucky if I don't have to experience. However, where we differ is that I am not anti-forces. War is inevitable, and being in the forces is just a job. Its members are just working in a shitty job that I do not envy and admire them for.

Which brings me on to the idea of glory. They would argue that you it's impossible to get glory from killing other people. I would argue that it's just another word for dying without any good reason, much like most war deaths. The concept of 'glory' as you die serving your country and its people is as ridiculous as the idea of me endorsing Ken Livingstone as the next Mayor of London. When you die you are dead, and that is all there is to it.

There are those who die doing acts to save their fellow troops and those really are glorious, but they're also damn stupid (a.k.a. 'brave').

Death is not glorious.

Clarification: to appease my dear house-mate Jonny, I must correct my lexicon. I am anti-war in that I don't want it to happen, however I also think that it is a necessary and inevitable evil. Apparently that essentially makes me pro-war. Hope that's clearer.