Category: Uncategorized

Core Labour values

A very good post on Martin Bright’s New Statesman’s blog which looks beyond what he calls the Michael Martin affair, and suggests that

“the real question for younger Labour MPs is how they define themselves against the other parties without reverting to the old politics of class identity. Oddly, this may mean a return to certain core Labour values: an abhorrence of poverty, social injustice and inequality. Some Labour MPs are worried that young people joining the party are more interested in civil liberties and global warming than in the millions of people still living in poverty in Britain today. Yet it is for those who still believe that Labour has a duty to the poorest in society to offer a persuasive argument that the party can and should make a difference, rather than simply manage the status quo better than the Tories.

If Labour backbenchers are looking for a cause more worthy than the Speaker of the House of Commons, they could do worse than commit themselves to honouring pledges to end poverty in Britain. Blair and Brown proved they could do what was once unimaginable: run a successful economy and increase investment in public services while winning over swaths of middle-class voters. What the Conservative Party has yet to prove, despite the rhetoric, is that its frontbenchers, most of whom do not have a single member of their extended families who has known a day of economic hardship, really care about those who have.”

Personal accounts

I never cease to wonder at the uncritical belief this government seems to have in the digital age. Leaving aside the reports of lost or missing data, failed or failing projects and costs out of control, the success or failure of one of this government’s flagship projects, Personal Accounts, will it seems depend on whether the IT will stand the strain: on day one, 5 million people are likely to be enrolled. It may be a little over four years away, but that is a very short time period to ensure that everything will be in place and ready to go (the fiasco with patient records points up the risks). And the real problem is that no one knows at the moment what the detail will be, what will be needed and what the effect will be. This last is critical for another reason. The legislation is currently on its way through Parliament, and the necessary Act will be made before the end of the year. But it is only now that the Government has commissioned a report on how Personal Accounts will affect people. Will they be appropriate for all employees? And if not, how does this square with compulsion?

Parliamentary fear and greed

If I didn’t know better, I would guess that Nick Robinson quite deliberately chose the highly unattractive MP he interviewed last night on BBC News. On he (the MP) went, bleating about how unfair it was that he had to answer all those questions about where the money went, and that it was time to stop this nonsense now. Not his finest moment. I suppose we should not be surprised that MPs are so up in arms about it all. After all, when you have your snout deeply into the Westminster trough, you will probably do anything to keep it there. For more, you cannot beat Nick Robinson’s blog and the comments posted on it. I particularly liked the comment from Patrick Stevens, about politicians and journalist being the least respected of occupations (makes a change from it being lawyers). 

Selling time

My favourite New Yorker cartoon is of two large, plump cats, either side of a mouse-hole. One is saying to the other, “If we were lawyers, this would be chargeable time.” It says it all. My partners have had to put up with my constant refrain, when we discuss billing strategies, that we should not be in the business of selling time, but instead should be persuading our clients to pay for value. The problem is that time cost as a measurement seems so simple, clients may not like it but are used to it, and everyone else does it, so why should we change. Well, things are changing. Front page of the FT on Monday was the report Lawyers in UK reform hourly charges. This began,

Leading London-based law firms are reforming their system of hourly charges as they come under fire from clients who feel they are paying too much at a time of soaring legal industry profits.

Leading firms told the Financial Times that they were offering alternatives to hourly rates and making more use of cost-cutting business practices, such as putting services offshore. The shift highlights growing external pressures on the legal profession to change, after a period of dramatic earnings growth achieved through expanding internationally and exploiting the corporate takeover boom.

British firms have for the most part been slower than their US counterparts to examine alternatives to hourly billing. In the US, firms have for several years been under significant pressure to reform.

All I will add is about time to. It is not enough to argue that because it is easy, it must be the right way to do it. And if this is happening in the City, how long before it reaches the rest of us?