Customer Satisfaction Cannot Be Bought.

An awful lot of marketing is predicated upon the incentivisation of customers. Offer them financial discounts and/or perceived psychological benefits and they will buy your product/service.

In contrast, the Yale-based weight-loss site stickk.com is predicated on research that suggests that avoiding a negative outcome is much more of a behaviour enforcer. Facing a self-imposed financial loss if you fail to meet your target is apparently much more of a spur to continued action than being offered a positive reward.

The concept of opportunity cost which states that the true cost of something is having to forgo the next best option) seems to me to back this up and has been at the heart of my belief that not reducing customer irritation while avoiding blandness. A reward is nice, but inevitably short-lived. Having disappointment removed is less obvious but ultimately more noticeable.

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Contempt For Democracy

We hate Prince George

"Call the dogs off? What a joke!"

The Major smacked down his tightly-rolled copy of the Times on Tyler's kitchen table. But for the fact that he already got there some time ago, it sounded like he was being driven to drink.

"It's precisely because of people like the Chief Druid that we've got into this situation in the first place! Listen, the reason we have such contempt for our MPs is not because we're paying for their duck fetishes and porno films - we expect that. No - it's because they have such contempt for us! They don't give a stuff what we want! Never have!"

Take crime. That appalling case of those poor kiddies in Hackney. One child tortured to death, and the rape of a two-year old - a two year old! Unbelievable! Yet, when it comes to punishing the scum that did it, all they get is a few years in some cushty PFI holiday camp.

Out here, most of us want to string 'em up. In fact, we never wanted to abolish the drop in the first place. It was our MPs that did that - against our wishes! And look at the murder rate now - three times what it was back in the 50s!

Take what happened to the Listeners' Law - that dreadful twok Pound pushing his way onto the wireless, faithfully promising that he'd table in Parliament whatever law the listeners vote for. But as soon as they vote for the Tony Martin shoot-burglars law - well, bugger me - he vetoes it, literally calling the listeners a bunch of bastards. How dare he treat us with such contempt!?!! Who does he think he is!!

No, if anyone has brought democracy into contempt, it's not the Telegraph, or the Barclays, or that woman on Question Time - it's our MPs, and the rest of the ruling elite, including the Druid.

We need to change things all right! We need to make our MPs accountable to us, not their party leaders. And if that means electing Esther whatshername... hmm... well, maybe not her... and certainly not that sanctimonious white suit man. But somebody like our Club Secretary - very good man - he wouldn't forget us once up there.

Did you mention a drink?"

****

The yawning void (do they yawn?) between us and our ruling elite has been blown wide open. So you'd kinda think they'd have gleaned we aren't hailing them, but hating them.

But as we discovered with the unappealing Andrew MacKay, it doesn't work like that. Even in current circs, they have huge difficulties even understanding us (can he really have thought his meeting with constituents had gone well?).

We are all crying out for an immediate election to secure some proper representation. But the elite haven't quite picked up the message.

His Grace tells us to stop now, because further humiliation risks undermining the very foundations of democracy. Labour man Matthew Taylor tells us it would be dangerous to have an election because we've already got the most motivated possible set of MPs to sort out the mess. Labour ministers (various) tell us we can't have an election because it will distract Gordo's attention from the quite superb job he's doing managing of our economy.

We clearly want, and need, an election soonest to eliminate the worst of the sleazebags - without that, nobody has any moral authority to change anything.

But we also need be a lot clearer about why we actually need MPs.

At present, they are a malfunctioning electoral college whose purpose is to select a Prime Minister. But in Tyler's New World Order (TNWO), we would be electing the PM/President directly, for fixed terms - just like the Yanks and the French. So what then for our MPs?

We'd surely want them to be more than ministers in waiting, focused mainly on plotting their way up the greasy pole. And we'd surely want them to be more than social workers, sorting out housing benefit claims - particularly since in TNWO we'll have decentralised responsibility for welfare and many other public services back down to the local level.

Elected talking heads for Newsnight? Nah - we've already got more than enough of them.

So what then? Why do we need MPs?

Holding government to account - yes, that's it. We need them on select committees grilling ministers on the detail of policy. Yes, for sure.

And scrutinising key legislation. Certainly.

And Tyler would really like to see them reassert their traditional role in controlling government spending - and taxes. When did we last have a serious Parliamentary debate on the government's plans to spend our money? When did Parliament last say No - you can't have that much - you'll have to make do with less?

But our whipped lobby-fodder party hacks are never going to do any of that.

No, to get anywhere along that road, we will need MPs who are much more independent, and much more independently minded. Independent at Westminster.

So how do we manage that?

First, primary elections to loosen the hold of parties and strengthen the hold of local constituents.

Second, many fewer MPs - say 450 - but better paid relative to ministers (obviously the Allowance/hidden salary system goes completely).

Third, no doubling up as minister and MP - if you want to serve as a government minster, you have to resign as an MP. To get more independent MPs we need to split the executive from the legislature - just like in the US.

And fourth... I'm sure there's a fourth, but I've just run out of time on this post.

TBC...

PS There's a lot of hysterical talk about how all this MP-slagging will end with the ignorant masses electing Adolf Hitler. So the responsible classes must close down further discussion asap. But even we ignorant masses can understand the distinction between our self-serving sleazy MPs and democracy itself. It's only the former we hold in contempt: the latter is what we need to rescue from their clutches.

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Cometh The Hour, Cometh The George?

Think of England George

This week's reports from the IMF and Standard and Poors (see yesterday's post) have piled the pressure on George.

The IMF says he must be much tougher than Darling in tackling the build-up of debt. And he must place the emphasis on cutting expenditure rather than raising taxes.

S&P threatens to remove the UK's coveted AAA credit rating if:

"... we conclude that, following the election, the next government's fiscal consolidation plans are unlikely to put the U.K. debt burden on a secure downward trajectory over the medium term."

So the heat is on, and George is the man strapped in the flaming seat.

What must he do?

First, as we've repeatedly and tediously blogged for years now, he must set out an explicit Medium Term Fiscal Strategy. It needs to incorporate a robust and quantified set of fiscal rules covering government borrowing, debt, and most crucially, spending. That last element was the gaping hole in Brown's famous fiscal rules, and George must close it.

The Strategy must set out a clear, and inevitably, stoney path for cutting the burden of government expenditure. A path which must be linked to, and driven by, a sustainable projectory for borrowing and debt. Spending must be driven by affordability, not grandiose social engineering projects.

Second, he must establish an independent fiscal monitoring authority to keep a very public eye on him - as he has promised to do (Another quango? Yes, but a critical one, fully funded by closing scores of others - eg the Equality and Human Rights Commission. And if we're that strapped, Tyler and a group of like-minded zealots might be able to cobble something together pro bono).

Third - and by far the most difficult - he must actually cut spending.

And unfortunately, that last task has just been made all the more difficult by the MPs expenses scandal. For how can these duck feather-bedded MPs possibly wield the axe on the poor and heavy laden? Where is their moral authority?

Take welfare. That comprises around one-third of all public spending, so it cannot possibly escape the cuts. But unlike say healthcare, where you can take refuge behind the argument that "efficiency" will deliver painless cuts (as Philip Hammond did on yesterday's Newsnight), cuts in welfare benefits mean someone loses cold hard cash.

Consider one of BOM's very first money-saving ideas - a redefinition of the poverty line (see this post).

The current definition of poverty is 60% of median income - ie households living below 60% of median income are defined as being poor (actually, it's 60% in so-called "equivalised income" terms - don't ask, but if you must, see here). And government welfare payments are driven by the desire to ensure nobody is below 60% (that's what they mean by "abolishing" child poverty).

But there's nothing magical about 60%. Years ago, it used to be 50%, and that was when median incomes were much lower than they are now.

We all know the argument: the old grinding financial poverty of popular imagination was long ago consigned to history. By and large, today's state benefits are more than enough to buy food, shelter, clothing, tellies, DVDs, and washing machines. And the issue with many of the poor is not money, but lack of ability to manage their own lives. Bigger hand-outs do not help with that.

So we suggested returning to 50%. And our fag packet suggested that would save around one-third of the welfare bill - a staggering £60-70bn pa. In one bound we'd be out of the debtors' prison free.

Is George up for that? Are our moat-owning, property-flipping, cosseted chauffeured MPs ready for the howls of outrage that would greet such an attack on the poor?

Yeah. I think we can see how that one will play out.

But if you rule out welfare, and you rule out the NHS, and you rule out schools, and you rule out overseas aid, pretty soon there's nothing left to cut.

Except of course, the second duck home allowance.

George, we need you to grit your teeth, close your eyes, stop reading the Grauniad, stop watching the BBC, and think of England.

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Stable To Negative

Are we sure this is a Magic Punch Bowl?*

Another day of grim debt news.

The latest monthly borrowing stats are appalling. Net debt has now surged to 53% of GDP, up from 36% just two years ago.

And this morning credit rating agency Standard and Poors has moved HMG's credit assessment from stable to negative, something that immediately whacked the financial markets. S&P now says there's a one in three chance of an outright cut to the UK's credit rating as debt approaches 100% of GDP. That would jack up the cost of government debt, and it's something we didn't even suffer during the 1970s.

In a different part of the forest, Tyler lunched yesterday with a senior and highly respected City-type. We'll call him Mr X, although his real name is gggg ggggg (redacted by Fees Office).

Surveying our watering hole, Tyler noted that since last visiting at the start of the year, things seemed to have picked up. Were we on the mend? Was Mr X tripping over any of those green shoots?

Mr X then proceeded to list scores of said shoots - equity markets up, credit markets up, easier funding, leading indicators turning, even the property market is bottoming. Yes, with June just around the corner, shoots are bustin' out all over. All highly gratifying... time for another drink?

As the FT's Martin Wolf noted yesterday:

"... policymakers have thrown the most aggressive fiscal and monetary stimuli and financial rescues ever seen at this crisis. Finally, this effort has brought some success: confidence is returning and the inventory cycle should bring relief. As Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, remarked, the global economy is “around the inflection point”.

And in its latest UK assessment, the IMF gives at least a slight nod of agreement:

"... output is likely to continue to contract in the near term, although at a decelerating pace... with quarterly growth picking up gradually through 2010... the significant economic stimulus in train in the UK and other large countries should support the recovery."

So that's all lovely then. Large ones all round.

What an earth is going on? Green shoots in the financial markets, and a credit downgrade for HMG?

Well, the truth is that what's good for the financial markets isn't necessarily so good for HMG (aka UK taxpayers).

The IMF spells it out for us.

First, there's the tricky issue of the printing press. Easy money is great for financial markets in the short-term, but not so great for future inflation. Does that press actually have a reverse gear? And even if it does, how can we be sure the Bank of England knows how to operate it?

The IMF recommends a reassertion of Bank independence, and "transparent communication" on how precisely the Bank intends to drain off all the dosh now sloshing around. But all we've had so far is a stream of opaque analysis attempting to explain why the chunky 17.4% year-on-year growth in the money supply (M4) shouldn't worry us because it somehow doesn't count.

Then there's the disastrous condition of our public finances. In the short-term, government deficits may pump up the economy and underpin the equity market. In the longer term there's the small matter of repayment.

And on that, it's worth quoting the IMF at length (mainly because we agree with it):

"... the success of the current policy package hinges on the continued trust in the sustainability of the fiscal position. A continued strong commitment to medium-term fiscal consolidation is hence crucial... commitments would be strengthened by:

• Targeting a more ambitious medium-term fiscal adjustment path... The focus... should be to put public debt on a firmly downward path faster than envisaged in the 2009 Budget.

• Providing greater clarity on the specific measures needed... The emphasis in current plans to weigh the adjustment toward expenditure reduction is appropriate in light of international experience that expenditure-based consolidations are more durable.

• Allocating any upside surprises to growth or revenue to reduce deficits more aggressively and limit the accumulation of public debt.

• And finally, building a broad public consensus on the critical need for sizeable fiscal adjustment to assist in meeting fiscal challenges."

As we've blogged many times, we need a clearly stated medium-term fiscal strategy, anchored by a robust commitment to cut spending.

Unfortunately, we don't have such a strategy. All we have is a prospective credit rating downgrade.

*Footnote It was William McChesney Martin, the longest serving chairman of the Federal Reserve who told us that the central bank’s role is to “take away the punch bowl just when the party starts getting interesting”. Given our dire straights, I reckon time's up already.

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Customer Data Should Help The Customer Too.

Conference badges are simple things. You fill in a form for an event and some days, weeks or months later you're wearing a badge with some of that data on it.

But is it the data you want to appear on you badge? Have you ever been prompted regarding which lines of data (company or occupation for example) will actually appear on the badge or in the yearbook or in some other piece of potential self-promotion.

If you're collecting data, you're no doubt keen on building a database of attendees in a format that makes your life easy and will allow you to market to them in the future. Wouldn't it be better marketing if you spent a little time showing that you were also aware of the self-promotion opportunities that they wanted to exploit?

Letting them know/influence how their badge will look is just one very simple way of potentially delighting them. But because it falls under the label of conference administration and not conference marketing, nobody does it. The business world is filled with missed marketing opportunities and most of them will cost you nothing.

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We Can't Have An Election Because...

So let's see if I've got this straight. We can't have an immediate election because...

• Chaos would ensue (Gordo yesterday)
• The parties are agreed they have a sacred duty to put things right before asking voters to choose... er... between the parties (Hattie this morning)
• Parliamentary committees must opine on weighty matters before voters can possibly be trusted to make their own judgement (Tony Wright, last night)
• MPs need time to decode the latest message from Alpha Centauri (Limpid Opec, two thousand light years from home)
• We will all lose our jobs (assorted Hon Members)

On the off-chance that you haven't read Peter Oborne's Triumph of the Political Class, you should do so now (and just for a giggle, see this review from staunch Labour insider Michael White).

What comes across ever more loudly in this scandal is that it really is them and us. They don't trust us to grasp highly technical issues, such as what they're actually paying themselves, or how many tubes of Rolos it's appropriate to claim for in a single month.

Will an election make any difference?

Well, it will relieve us of the worst, most discredited government since WW2, so that's a plus. And we should get a crop of untainted more independent members, which will be another plus.

But sadly, it won't transform the way we're governed.

Our first-past-the-post Westminster system ensures the primacy of party. As we've blogged before, with no separation of executive and legislature, the majority of MPs have no incentive to hold government properly to account.

Our Big Government elected dictatorship will simply carry on, albeit in a slightly less grubby set of clothes.

PS According to Nick Robinson, many "perfectly decent MPs" are so fed up with the way they're being pilloried, they're thinking of throwing in the towel. We'll believe it when we see it, but maybe if enough of them did so, it would force an early election. I for one would be much more inclined to vote for a candidate who had helped force an early poll.

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Your Support Needed

No chaos here

1. Frank Field For Speaker

Frank Field has long been one of BOM's heroes (see many previous posts eg here). And now amid the wreckage, he stands as one of the few MPs with the experience, the character, and the moral stature to take over as Commons Speaker.

Clearly, we voters get no direct say in this: our MPs see themselves not as mere delegates, there to do as we say, but as representatives, there to do as they damned well please until we find out.

But we can certainly make our views known. And another of BOM's old friends, Henry De Zoete, has set up a Facebook group specifically to support a bid from Frank.

You can sign up here and may we urge you all to do so.

(You will need a Facebook account, but it's free).


2. Anti-BNP Petition

As regular readers will know, we are seriously concerned about the scale of immigration we've seen over the last decade. Contrary to government propaganda, it hasn't made Britain richer (in terms of GDP per head), but it has imposed huge strains on our public services, and it has cranked up social tensions (see many previous blogs). Which is why we want to see an Aussie-style annual limit.

Now we're in recession, the chickens are coming home to roost. And one of the major beneficiaries is the BNP.

Now, I must confess I don't know a great deal about their detailed policies, and I do need to find out more.

But what I already know I don't like. "Voluntary resettlement" for all immigrants is a euphemism straight out of 1930s Germany.

We are where we are, and one of the reasons we need to take decisive action on future inflows is precisely so we can work on the integration of those already here.

There is no way we should suppress or ban the BNP: we rather need to engage in an open robust debate with them about migration (and some of their other worrisome policies, like establishing a Bennite-style siege economy).

But we can certainly register our concern right now, which is why I urge you to put your name to the anti-BNP petition you can find here.

(And see this post for the difficulty of discussing immigration without appearing to support the BNP).

PS Does anybody outside the Labour Party believe we don't need an election soonest? Does anyone other than our increasingly unstable PM believe that an election would mean chaos? It is outrageous that in the midst of our huge economic crisis, we have to suffer another 12 months of such rudderless gutless deception. It is no comfort that Brown and his fourth-rate "colleagues" will go down in history as even worse than all the other Labour governments we've suffered.

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