On May 7th the Coulsdon and Purley Debating Society debated the motion “Elite sportsmen and women are grossly overpaid”.

Mike Swadling opposed the motion, and below is his speech delivered to the society.  As always with this friendly group the debate was good natured, very well proposed and drew out some great views from the audience.

You may not have picked up this on the news but, in a stunning coup d’état earlier today, I became Supreme Leader of Price and Wages in the UK. I get to decide wages and pensions of everyone.

It’s my decision, it’s not your effort, it’s not your savings, it’s not the sacrifices you made, it’s not that you took that better paying job you didn’t like, it’s not the investment choices you made that decide what you earn. No, I do, I get to decide it. Does that seem fair? Are you happy with that? Because if you vote for this motion, that’s in effect what you are voting for.

Is that something you want? Or should there be another way of doing this perhaps? We all get to see the end product of these highly paid stars, but we don’t see the years of effort to get there.

I know two people whose sons are excellent footballers.  One’s son is in the youth team at a Championship side, the other is aiming for a scholarship to an American University for soccer.  We all talk about the high-end wages’ footballers get at the top, but most of these kids won’t make it. They are driving on a Thursday night, Wednesday night, most of the weekend, taking their kids away, taking them to across the country to play for their team. They are putting huge amounts of effort in for their family.  These kids are also putting a huge amount of their own effort often whilst taking exams, to try and make it. We just see the end product, to which some will say “isn’t it unfair what they earn”, but we and they don’t see the effort.

Sir Steve Redgrave, the great Olympian, talking about his training said:
“It’s all about endurance training.  Our training sessions are long and boring. Probably the hardest part was the circuit training in the gym.  There were 13-14 different exercises and you had so many reps on each exercise and the peak of that we’d be doing four circuits, so we had over an hour of continuous reps of medium-sized weights, but doing it as quickly as you could. That produced more lactic acid than anything else.”

These people have worked ridiculously hard and that is why they are an elite. They are not putting in a normal amount of effort.

On average, at Real Madrid, footballers train around four to five hours a day. Now, that doesn’t sound too bad as a job. But, they first get there and do 25 to 30 minutes of cardio, followed by some short, intense sprinting drills. That’s sprinting after they’ve done the cardio exercises. They do football tactical drills to improve their understanding with teammates. Then go to the gym for muscle development and strength.

I’m sure we all know of people that were good swimmers at a younger age. People that would be at the swimming pool at six o’clock in the morning before all the schools came in. A huge amount of sacrifice by them and their families. This is not a normal job. This is not a normal level of effort. That’s why these people can end up so well rewarded. And we enjoy their skills.

The opening weekend of the Premier League in 2003 with five live matches drew in a total of eight million TV viewers. The Premier League is big. It’s exported. It’s a fantastic product for our country. In the same season, there was an average of 527,000 viewers per match in the US.

A survey in 2017 revealed that more than 40% of the population in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas consider themselves to be soccer fans. Cricket is the world’s second most popular sport, followed by 2.5 million people. Basketball by 2.2 billion people. Tennis has an estimated fan base of a billion people in the world.

Rugby, not a sport you think of as being in that many places, has over 400 million fans worldwide. Basketball over 500 million. Gymnastics, not a sport I would think of as being a spectator sport, has over 100 million fans worldwide. That’s gymnastics. It’s the smaller of one of the big sports,  yet still has more people following it across the globe than the populations of Iran, Turkey or Germany.

Sports are huge and the people at the top of them get rewarded to reflect that. But that’s the people that follow it. Who goes along? The average Formula 1 race has over 279,000 people at it. The NFL in America has 69,000, Bundesliga, 42,000, Premier League, averages over 40,000 people in attendance, Major League Basketball, 29,000, Rugby League in Australia, 19,000 and the European Rugby Champions Cup, club rugby, 16,000. These are people that are willing to physically attend and pay and turn up.

Even if their average ticket was £30 (and it will be more), that means the average Formula 1 event brings in £8.3 million. The average club at Rugby Union, which is at the lower end, brings in half a million pounds. This is a huge amount of money.

Of course, the real money is in TV. The Super Bowl gets 124 million viewers, and Champions League, 380 million. The Women’s FIFA World Cup, 1.1 billion. Women’s football, wasn’t well known 10 years ago, and 1.1 billion people watched their world cup. The Men’s World Cup will have over 3 billion viewers. That’s a lot of people turning on their TVs, and that, of course, generates a lot of revenue.

The current Premier League TV deal, brings in £1.57 billion in domestic TV rights and £1.64 billion in overseas TV rights. Our Premier League, with all these overpaid stars, or supposedly overpaid stars, is generating £1.6 billion in external revenue for this country. Wimbledon, the tennis, brings in $44 million in UK TV and $53 million in US TV, and, of course, there are other markets. The Tokyo Olympics brought in $3.1 billion in TV income. IPL cricket in India brings in over £1 billion per year in TV.

All these viewers, all these people turning up, all this income, where should the money go if it’s not the performers? Who should get that money if it’s not the people generating that entertainment?

There are 380 matches in an English Premier League season. It generates £3.2 billion in TV income. Assuming ticket prices are only £30, average matchday income in this country between TV and attendance, is £8.2 million. Assuming 40 players, now there are only 22 on the field, but you’ve got subs, you’ve got a coach, you’ve got a manager, you talk about the people actually providing that entertainment, that’s £206,000 per person.

The average EPL salary works out at £94,000 per match. If anything, you might argue, these players are underpaid. There’s £206,000 each they’re bringing in, but they’re only paid £94,000 of it. Where does the other £112,000 go? It goes to youth teams, reserve teams, women’s football, all subsidised by the men’s game. Less than half goes to the people who actually provide the entertainment. I’ve not included sponsorship and not added other matchday income. Even more money not going to the players.

If you think elite sportsmen and women are grossly overpaid, with all the income that these sports generate, I want to ask you, why do you think that tennis star Coco Gauff didn’t deserve her $6.7 million in winnings last year? Why do you think that Simone Biles, the gymnast, didn’t deserve her $8.5 million in sponsorship and endorsements. Why did she not deserve that? You’ve got to be able to answer that question. Who should have got the $1.4 million in prize money that golfer Nelly Korda raised if it wasn’t her?

Why do you want to deny all of these elite female athletes, after all their years of sacrifice, with the hundreds of millions of people that view, and the hundreds of millions of income that comes in, their fair share?

I also wonder what it is about sports that people object to. Top models shift clothes. The highest paid model of last year was Kendall Jenner, who generated $40 million worth of income. Chrissy Teigen generated $39 million. They shifted clothes. Someone decided to pay them. Why shouldn’t they get paid for it if they generate someone else’s revenue?

The top musicians last year, Taylor Swift, played 56 shows and earned $305 million. Beyonce, 46 shows, earning $145 million. Ed Sheeran, 41 shows, earning $110 million. If these people pay to sold out venues for people who want to pay, and nobody’s forcing anyone to be there, why shouldn’t the artists get the reward if they’re the reason people turn up? I ask again, if they don’t get it, who should?

Elon Musk has made $250 billion through his businesses and inventions; Henry Ford would have been worth over $200 billion in today’s money. James Dyson, has made $22 billion. If they didn’t get the money for what they invented, and few people would deny inventors earning the benefit of their craft, of their ideas, then who should? If you think they should get it, what is it about sports people that you want to deny from their toil? Why are they less deserving of their income than, say, academics, surgeons, actors or entrepreneurs? What makes them less deserving than anyone else?

As with anything, if you cap the price, you simply get more demand, with the profit to be made by the touts who will suck up the tickets in between. They will be making the profit rather than the sports stars. What is it about the touts that you think is more deserving than the people playing on the field? This isn’t just true in sports. Scotland introduced rent controls for two years. They’re just about rolling off now. It led to a reduction in supply of rented accommodation, and a reduction in investment in properties, and basically increased the time it took to get a new property from 12 to 16 weeks.

When you artificially hold down a price, you create problems. You create problems with investment. You don’t satisfy the demand, and through lower prices you may create more demand, but someone makes a profit that isn’t the person that’s renting out the property, or indeed the person that wants to rent it in the first place. In New York, you famously have rent-controlled apartments. All too often the official tenant sublets. A middleman, not the landlord, not the actual tenant. Someone who does very little, and who doesn’t deserve it is making the money.

When you have an artificially low price, the money doesn’t go to the fans, because the fans still want to go. In fact, if you hold the price down, more fans want to go, and the tickets will be sold on the black market, and that will be more money for middlemen.

To quote the economist Milton Friedman,
“We economists don’t know much, but we do know how to create a shortage. If you want to create a shortage of tomatoes, for example, just pass a law that retailers can’t sell tomatoes for more than two cents per pound. Instantly you’ll have a tomato shortage.”

And to paraphrase him, ‘Price ceilings, which prevent prices from exceeding a certain maximum, cause shortages. Price floors, which prohibit prices below a certain minimum, cause surpluses, at least for a time.’

What happens with that surplus? What happens with that shortage? As the economist Thomas Sowell says,
“Price controls almost invariably produce black markets, where prices are not only higher than the legally permitted prices, but also higher than they would be in a free market, since the legal risks must also be compensated. While small-scale black markets may function in secrecy, large-scale black markets usually require bribes to officials to look the other way.”

If anyone has brought tickets from a tout, they are not normally what you would describe as nice people. They’re not people that make you think, ‘I’m happy doing business with them’.

While small-scale black markets may function in secrecy, large-scale black markets usually require bribes for officials to look the other way. As an example, anyone knows anything about getting tickets to the FA Cup final, will know there are a huge number of tickets given away to people involved in football. They all too often get sold on the black market.

There are always touts around the game, otherwise they wouldn’t do this. This is what the motion calls for, if we don’t pay the players, if we hold down prices artificially as a means of not paying the players, you just make touting more widespread.

When Rugby Union was an amateur sport, players had a habit of getting great jobs. We used to have players not being fairly paid but they often got great jobs in the city, and people always wondered why.

When football had a maximum wage, it wasn’t the working-class heroes who received the money. No, those lads, had second jobs. The club owners got the money, or the people with good connections got the money. The people that knew how to make the system work for them, they got the money.

To quote Thomas Sowell again, “there are no solutions, only trade-offs”.

In the tens of thousands people attend, in the hundreds of millions they watch, billions are generated in revenue. I make this challenge to you, after years of hard work and sacrifice, the sports stars provide the entertainment and inspiration. Why do you here think you should pass judgement on how much these sports stars should earn?

Summary

Sports brings people together as Nelson Mandela once said,
“Sport has the power to change the world, it has the power to inspire.”   “It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair.”

We’ve spoken about the sacrifices elite sports people make.  They are different, that’s why they are elite.  Martina Navratilova clarifies the difference in mentality they need to have in saying, “Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost”.

Finally, to quote Muhammad Ali,
“It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.”

And why I ask you, shouldn’t he get well paid for it?

On December 1^st the Coulsdon and Purley Debating Society debated the motion “This time next year life will be back to normal”

Mike Swadling opposed the debate, and below is his speech delivered to the society via Zoom.  As always with this friendly group the debate was good natured, very well proposed and drew out some great views from the audience.

“This time next year life will be back to normal” – Opposing motion

What a year we have had, and expect to have for a good few months to come.  We have lost too many people, lost too many freedoms, and will continue to suffer from the economic consequences and health care losses of lockdown.

Meanwhile new ways of living have become part of our new normal.  Many people who had never held a conference call or video conference, now do so daily.  Millions have worked from home all year.

The knock at the door of an Amazon delivery is now a familiar sound, and if you’re lucky enough to get a slot, we have become used to home deliveries for our food shopping.

Now much, as I would like it to be so, I don’t believe this time next year, life will be back to the old normal.  Nor do I believe, we will be living fundamentally changed lives, but the way we live has seen a step change, and will continue to evolve.

First let me offer some hope, the pandemic levels of death ended in June, when death rates thankfully returned to the 5 year normal.  Life with Covid became endemic.  Predictions of a second waves of deaths have proved thankfully untrue, even as cases have risen.  Treatments are getting better, the NHS was not overwhelmed at the peak, and won’t be now.  We also have the prospect of a multitude of vaccines to build up further immunity in the population.  We can look forward to the future, where the true threat of Covid 19, is seen as no more serious than threat of a normal seasonal flu.

But the absence of Covid deaths does not mean an immediate return to a year ago.  For instance let us look locally for examples of how things are changing.

Most of us have gone a year without visiting a department store.  Debenhams in Croydon has closed, John Lewis, a flagship store for the new Westfield development, has closed its Purley Way outlet.  Arcadia, which includes Topshop, Burton and Dorothy Perkins, based out in Valley Park is reported to be on the brink of collapse.  The Westfield shopping centre unlikely to happen before the first lockdown, is now almost impossible to believe.

With retail on the life support from furlough schemes, it’s hard to imagine the Whitgift centre ever truly reviving.  No doubt we will see something new in our town centre, but online shopping has ensured it won’t be the kind of all-encompassing retail centre, we have seen for all our lives.

Aside from retail, Croydon has been for many years a major office centre.  These offices have now largely stood empty since March.  Offices that cost millions to run are now being run from peoples spare rooms, dining tables or sofas.  Why would a business want their staff to return, to reincur those costs?

Now I don’t believe the world of work will fundamentally change so much we will never be back in the office.  Distant relations work in part because we have built up trust and connections from having physically meet.

But I wouldn’t overplay that fact, I like many now work with teams all over the globe, I have never meet the people I work with in the US, Malaysia, or Italy, yet we get on, we laugh and joke, and importantly we get the job done.

People are sociable, it would be handy to meet-up with my local colleagues from time to time.  Frankly it would be good to get out of my house.  I’ve not seen much evidence you can fully train people to do a job remotely.  Some office jobs require a higher degree of physical interaction, and of course away from offices there is a whole world of world that requires a physical presence.

But what does this mean for Croydon?

Well my prediction, and hardly an original one, is that we will move from a world where many work from home 1-2 days a week, to a world where people go into the office say 1-4 days per month.  Offices will have less desks and more meeting rooms and breakout spaces.  I firmly suspect enterprising coffee shops will be adding ‘work pods’ you can hire to get together with a few co-workers.

What happens to the plethora of office blocks in central Croydon?  Their use, can only reduce.  What will we need?  80% of what we have today?  50% maybe, or even just 20%?  I don’t know, but I do know the twin engines of our town and indeed our city of Offices and Retail have both fundamentally changed.

Now what to do with all these office blocks?  We are already building a large number of housing blocks in Croydon.  Many people have concerns about this making Croydon a dormitory town, and that these homes are not suitable for families.

With people traveling to work less and working from home more, needing space in their homes, and dare I say it, maybe even a garden, these home are not suitable for todays’ let alone tomorrows living requirements.

With a need for housing people will no doubt be cramped into converted office blocks, even with the problems that will bring.

This does however offer one possible future for the Whitgift Centre.  Conversion to a much needed central park for those living in the new high rises around it.

Our town will not be the same this time next year, although I’m sure things will feel far better than today, they will be far from normal.

From the local changes let us look at some national changes.  Great Frost of 1709 was the coldest European winter during the past 500 years.  It caused widespread crop failure and economic devastation.  We are now facing the worst economic failure since then.  Let’s just put that into some perspective.

In the intervening years we have faced Jacobite revolution, a global 7 Year war with Louis XV’s France, fought in and lost the Americas, seen off Napoleon, fought two World Wars against Germany, seen massive economic changes with agricultural and industrial revolutions, introduced and repealed The Corn Laws, seen global economic depression in the 1930’s, formed a Union with and given independence to Ireland.  Gained and lost the world’s largest ever Empire,  Yet none of these lead to the economic crisis we now face.

To put it simply, Lockdown has caused more damage than the Luftwaffe.

The Office of Budget Responsibility forecasts the economy will shrink by 11.3% this year, and we will borrow £394bn the equivalent of 19% of GDP.  We are in a hole, and with new tougher Tiers in place, we have just ordered new digging equipment.

We don’t know how bad unemployment will be, how many shops will shut down, how much the transport industry will contract, or how little of the hospitality sector will remain after furlough ends, and economic realities kick in, but we do know it will be devastating.

Recovery from an economic shock this size won’t come quick.

The income tax was first introduced in the Napoleonic Wars as a temporary measure and is still with us today.  Blanket restrictions were applied to pub opening times during World War One, and left largely unchanged until 1988.  Rationing stayed in place for 9 years after the end of the second world war, and we didn’t pay off our war debts until 2006.

This economic shock is bigger than any of them.  It will take far, far longer than a year to get us out of this hole.

We also see health consequences.  Pre-lockdown a 1000 people a day were diagnosed with Cancer.  That has largely stopped for the last 9 months.  Many minor operations have been postponed and will become major operations.  The consequences a year from now, of the shutting down of large parts of our health service don’t bear contemplation.  On top of that the coming unemployment and lost prosperity, is a health crisis of its own.

Worse than all this I believe, and likely to have far longer consequences, is our loss of freedom.

I hope you all agree, Everyone has following the rights

• The right to liberty
• To not be subjected to arbitrary interference with privacy or home
• freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state
• freedom of religion; ….either alone or in community with others and in public or private
• freedom of opinion and expression
• freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
• the right to work, and to free choice of employment
• to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts

What I have read to you there are extracts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Articles 3, 5, 13, 18, 19, 20, 23 and 27, of which, are being broken right now by our government.  This is not a partisan point, as our opposition parties are arguably even more enthusiastic about the Covid Laws

Since 1215 with Magna Carta, through the 1689 Bill of Rights, to universal suffrage, freedoms have been hard won.  Those in power always want more, and by necessity will sacrifice your liberty to take it.

If you believe these freedoms, all these freedoms, will be back with us, and life will return to normal in a year from now, I have a bridge to sell you.  Only under the current law I’m not allowed to trade, you’re not allowed out to see the bridge, and shaking hands on a deal will see us both severely fined.

Some genies have escaped their bottle, and won’t be put back.  The economy will take many years to come back, the NHS will be dealing with the health consequences of this year for much of the next decade and who knows, when we will simply be allowed to do what we used to think of as normal interactions.

Life won’t return to normal by this time next year, but we should do our damnedest to make it as normal as possible.

Summing up

It has become something of a cliché to say George Orwell’s 1984, was meant as a warning of a dystopian future not a how to guide for government.

In the book criticism of the state is forbidden, there is no organised religion, you are under constant surveillance, and intimate relationships are strictly controlled.

We have no right to protest, the churches are closed, drones were following hill walkers and police ask you to report those breaking the rules, and government literally banned couples who live in separate houses from meeting up.

These will be temporary measures, just like we’re still in last March’s 3 week lockdown, to flatten the curve.

A year from now we will be in the midst of a very real economic crisis.  Many shops, pubs and restaurants will be boarded up.  Hotels will be closed, tourist attractions behind shutters.  We will have empty offices being converted into the troubled high-rises of the future, and we likely see a massive reduction of choice of public transport.  Things will not be normal.

The human spirt will however prevail.  The economy will bounce back.  We will push to regain our lost rights, or much like we are seeing in this lockdown, many will just ignore those in authority.  Life will return to normal but it will be a struggle and one that sadly will take us well beyond next year.

Image: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/virus-covid-science-covid19-4937553/

Article in January 2021 CR5 Magazine https://cr5.co.uk

The Coulsdon and Purley Debating Society planned to hold two debates in September but ran out of time on the night.  One was planned on “A small income tax increase is justified to fund social care”.

The text below was originally written by Mike Swadling as a speech to be delivered to a live audience for the purpose of a debating society.  Join them for their next debate on Monday 4^th November, where the subject will be “It is unrealistic nowadays to have an unarmed police force”.

Other details from debate club nights can be found in CR5 Magazine.

Yes pay more

We are at the start of a 25 year period of peak age.  The demographics mean for a generation we will have older people, often needing more care and fewer working age people to pay for it.  This will eventually ease away, but this a challenge facing us now.

I suspect I am not alone in having seen a loved one in hospital, not able to leave for a lack of social care.  To use the dreadful term many people are bed blocking what is say a £500 a day bed, because a roughly £500 a month social care package can’t be provided.

This doesn’t make sense for the patients’ mental or physical health, their family’s needs, costs to the NHS and taxpayers, or the needs of the person requiring that ‘blocked bed’.

That extra funding is needed few would doubt.  The question is how do you provide it?

Laffer Curve

Let me try a little thought experiment with you.

Which do you think would raise more revenue for the government?

An income tax rate of 100% or 0%?

(Answer: both the same £0 why would anyone work to pay 100% tax)

Ok which rate do you think would raise more money for the government?

An income tax rate of 99% or 1%?

(Answer: 1% why would anyone work to pay 99% tax, we all work at a tax rate of more than 1% tax)

An income tax rate of 75% or 25%?

(Answer: 25% why would anyone work to pay 75% tax)

This demonstrates higher tax rates do not necessarily mean higher tax takes.

Known as the Laffer curve after the Economist Arthur Laffer.  It predicts somewhere between 25% and 33% is the point where government income is maximised.

The disincentives in tax, do not outweigh the extra income from higher rates.

Broadly in income tax people are prepared to say two for me, and one for you.  But no more.

Tax

On the UKs average income of about £30,000.

• you pay about £6,000 in tax and national insurance
• you are usually be responsible for let’s say half the average £1600 council tax
• about £200 in car tax
• you pay about another £200 in air tax for your holiday
• and close to many of our hearts, 52p on a pint and about £3.5 on a £7 bottle of wine.

It’s not hard to see about a third of our income going in tax.

Total government tax revenue as a percentage of GDP is about 36%, whereas spending is about 37%.

Since the 1970s tax receipts have never exceed 38% of GDP, mostly that have hovered around 35%

• In this time we have had governments of Labour, Conservative, LibLab Pacts, Conservative Liberal coalitions, the UUP prop up James Callahan, and the DUP prop up Theresa May.
• In that time basic rate income has been as high as 35% and as low as 20%.
• The top rate has been as high as    83%    and as low as 40%.
• It’s not just income tax.  Corporation tax has been as high as 52% and as low as 28%

Yet the total tax take has never been lower than 32.5% of GDP and never higher that 37.5% of GDP.

Mostly these fluctuations are around the periods of recessions as the economy rapidly changes.

Higher tax rates don’t increase tax revenue.  People simply refuse to pay it.

They work less, more of off books, on in the case of the most highly skilled, simply move and work elsewhere to avoid overly burdensome tax rates.

High tax rates kill economic growth.

Savings

If you want to spend more on social care, find an existing poor use of money and reallocate it. You can also reduce the costs of providing the care itself. If I could ask your indulgence with a few suggestions:

• Merge responsibilities and budgets of the NHS and Social Service.
• As a result local managers can decide if the best service is provided by funding acute care or stopping bed blocking.
• As I have said I firmly believe many £500 a day beds are being filled for lack of a £500 a month care package.
• More money is pouring into the NHS.  You might not think it’s enough, but every year spending increases.  Form 3.7% of GDP in 1970 to 7.1% now, the trend is relentlessly up.
• Rather than focus on building more and better hospitals for a National Hospital Service, let’s focus on a National Health Service.
• Let’s see if there are more efficient ways to spend that money, that get better overall outcomes.
• Let’s get creative.  Some people require a huge amount of care, but lots of fairly active able pensioners and others require a little bit of social care.  At the same time we have problems caring for special needs adults and children and a high cost of nursery care.
• Let’s look at facilities where we can bring old and young together for both their benefits, and reduce the cost of staffing in the process.
• Experiments like those carried out by the ExtraCare Charitable Trust or St Monica Trust show such operations reduce depression and improve general health in the elderly whilst increasing maturity and language skills in the young.
• From 2013 all new Nurses need degrees.  Why?  Does it really require two years in college and 3 in University to empty a bed pan?
• Are straight A’s needed to provide a good bedside manor?
• Are these perhaps skills better learnt by doing, rather than by reading a book or sitting in a lecture theatre?
• Some functions performed by nurses may need additional qualifications but clearly not all.  There is anecdotal evidence that Nurses with degrees are less focused on being a patient’s friend, providing basic comfort or even a clean environment and more on only the work requiring graduate studies.
• A mixed ward with graduate, on the job highly trained, and new less skilled nurses providing basic care, will be cheaper, and frankly might be better at providing the full spectrum of care needed for patients.

Achieving the same level of care at a cheaper rate per a patient, means more care can be provided, or more money for life saving drugs, or simply a lower charge for those families paying for care.

Summing up

As I have said I think we do need to put more funding into social care.  But an income tax increase is simply the wrong way to provide it.

It may sound good, but it won’t do good. In fact it could have the opposite effect.

If you want more money to spend on social care, re balance government spending and make this a priority.

Vote against this motion, don’t reduce tax take and leave those most in need paying for a nice sounding, but wrong doing proposition.

Photo by The original uploader was Blakwolf at Italian Wikipedia. – Transferred from it.wikipedia to Commons., CC BY 2.5

The Coulsdon and Purley Debating Society held a debate in early September on the subject of “Priti Patel is right: it’s time to bring back the death penalty”.  To be fair the Home Secretary had walked back that statement, but it was a good opportunity to discuss capital punishment.

The text below was originally written by Mike Swadling as a speech delivered to a live audience for the purpose of a debating society.  Join them for their next debate on Monday 4^th November, where the subject will be “It is unrealistic nowadays to have an unarmed police force”.

Other details from debate club nights can be found in CR5 Magazine.

Eye4eye

Deuteronomy speaks of an eye for an eye.  But the principle predates the Old Testament and is first seen in Babylonian law.  It is also seen in pre-Christian Anglo Saxon law.

Partly thanks to Ghandi people perceive this to be a retaliation rather than a reasonable punishment.  The principle of an eye of an eye, started as a way to ensure punishment was measured and appropriate.

Goods taken would be return, and an injury would see a similar injury endured.

A death would be punishable by a death, not the wiping out of a family or clan, that was in ancient times, all too common.

That the punishment is proportional, in most societies was, and maybe still is a massive leap forward.

Indeed that fairness is engrained in most of us.

• If someone pick pockets from us, we don’t expect them to be battered or bruised (we might), but we expect some financial punishment or maybe some community service.
• If they break into our homes we expect some loss of freedom, some extensive community service or a short custodial sentence.
• If they attack us we expect a long punishing custodial sentence.

Therefore, I ask, who are we, if someone losses their life, to judge that the injury to them, should not be have a fair retribution?

I would like to emphasis here if someone loses their life, they not the friends and family are the primary wronged party. 

Yes other feel the loss, but the real loss is the person whose life was cut short.

Why should they not be entitled to the same retribution from the law as any of us who suffered a lesser crime?

Wrong thinking

We often hear that because we have murders in places that have a death penalty it does work as a deterrent.  It does, and I will come onto that.

But this idea that a punishment, any punishment deters all action, is something that we would apply in no other realm.

Who has ever heard:

• “If we just bring in a punishment for theft no one will ever steal anything”?
• “If we punish speeding, no one will speed”?
• “No one will evades tax, now we have fine for it”?

Indeed many here will have brought up children, I am sure we have all cared for some at some point.

We all know from this that once you set a boundary, no child ever breaks it.

Hold on is that not your experience?

Punishments do deter but don’t stop.  Different punishments deter in different times and places in different ways.  For instance different levels of crime and punishment may happen in different states in the US.

One with capital punishment may have more murders than one without, because, simply they are different places.  In the developed world, most murders occur in cities.

In Australia the outback of the Northern Territory has some of the highest murder rates in the world.  Why?  Its remote, really remote, it’s the place criminals go to hide.  It turns out they are still criminals, they commit murders.  It’s a different place and simply, should be, no more be compared to Sydney, than the hill country of Texas is with the South Side of Chicago.

It works

Beyond the inherent fairness of capital punishment, Priti Patel is right.  It is time to bring back the death penalty, because it works.

I agree with Nancy Reagan when she said:

“I believe that more people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.”

Or to quote President George W Bush:

“I don’t think you should support the death penalty to seek revenge. I don’t think that’s right. I think the reason to support the death penalty is because it saves other people’s lives”

I want to do a little thought experiment with you.

• Let’s say a new law in the UK meant murder would be punishable by death if committed on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday, but not if commitment on any other day of the week.
• Hands up if you think that would result on fewer murders, and keep in mind by its very nature, murder requires some premeditation.  On a Monday, Wednesday or Friday than other days of the week?
• Of course it would hitmen, wronged lovers, gang members and maybe even some psychopaths would change the day they choose to commit murders, if this was the law.

In the UK we had capital punishment until it was abolished in 1965.  Murders, are measured in rate per 100,000 people.

In Britain thanks to new ideas like Bobbies on the beat and new technology like fingerprints the murder rate started falling in roughly mid-1800s until the mid-1960s.

Thankfully murder is so low, that year or year rates fluctuate but trends can be seen.

We have more detailed statistics from 1900 where the decade saw a murder rate of 0.96 per 100,000.  This fell gradually to 0.75 for the 1930, the era of the great depression.  The rate rose slightly during and just after the war, but come 1959 it was down to 0.59 per 100,000.

In 1965 the rate was at 0.68, 1966, 0.76, 1974, 1.06.

What changed?  What made the British suddenly so much more murderous? 

Could it be?  The death penalty was abolished in 1965 and had basically all but stopped being used a few years earlier?

Punishments work, and punishments deter crime.  The reversal in this loss of innocent lives didn’t stop there.  By 1987 the murder rate was up at 1.19, by 1999, 1.45, by 2002 over 2 per 100,000 were murdered.

Based on today’s population every extra 1 person per 100,000 is an extra 660 needless deaths per year.  The 2010s thankfully the murder rate lower, but was still just below 1 per 100,000, or about 300 extra deaths over the 1960s rate, and it has of course come up again to 1.22 for 2016 the last year figures are available for.

The rate went down from 2003 to about 2016, why?  My speculation would be The Criminal Justice Act of 2003 which toughened sentences for murder and rules on life imprisonment.

Punishments work, and punishments deter crime.  Today we are losing about an extra 330 people year than when we have capital punishment.

What about the innocent?

But what about the innocent and the miscarriages of justice?  It’s a good question.  There will be irreversible miscarriages of justice.  Fact it will happen, but I put I to you, do you want to do good or do you want to feel good?

I want to do good.  I want to choose the route that results in the least deaths, not the route that makes me feel most cleansed.  We are losing approximately an extra 330 people per year than when we had capital punishment.  We will lose some innocent convicted people, but with capital punishment we would be doing good and saving more innocent lives.

The risk to innocent life’s being taken by the state is real.  But so is the risk to innocent lives being taken in murder.  Between 1735 and 1799 we executed about 7400 people.  But that was then.

It reduced to 762 between 1900 and 1964.  If all 100% of them turned out to be innocent the deterrent effect of capital punishment would still save on average 30 times as many innocent lives a year.

I ask again, do you want to feel good or actually do good?

But most won’t be innocent.  Indeed various studies in the US estimate that between 2.3 and 5% of all prisoners are innocent.  In the UK, reviews prompted by the Criminal Cases Review Commission have resulted in one pardon and three exonerations for people that were executed between 1950 and 1953 during which period we executed 68 people.

Again about 5%.  With modern DNA evidence I would expect this rate to fall.  But the deterrent effect would still be in place.

People will spend years, and even sometimes say anything to avoid capital punishment.  People will feel sympathy for them.

It doesn’t mean they deserve it.

Priti Patel is right: It’s time to bring back the death penalty.

It will save lives.  It will help abate the rising tide of knife crime we see on our streets.

It will give justice to those poor souls who had their lives untimely taken and for all its difficulties it is simply the right thing to do.

Photo by andy dolman, CC BY-SA 2.0 Link

On the 1^st July the Coulsdon and Purley Debating Society hosted a debate on the question ‘Women have become ridiculously militant.

In true debating society style, who spoke either to propose or oppose the motion was open for all members to volunteer.  Croydon Constitutionalist Mike Swadling argued against the motion.

Mikes’ argument was that women should be angry that they are treated as one group, not the individuals they are.  That women’s rights are being removed by the transgender movement, taking away the chance to compete at sports, and privacy to get changed away from men.  Finally if female activists are happy with their lot here, they really should stand up for women across the globe. The text of Mikes’ speech is below.

Introduction

Thank-you to tonight’s chair, to an un-militant Angela for proposing the motion, and to you all, for attending.

It may seem odd that I as a man, am in effect saying, women are not militant enough.  However I am confident I know, a sure-fire way to make a group of women more militant.  Clearly all that would be needed is for me, a man, to stand up here and tell you what to do!

What is this grouping that encompasses all women?  100 years after the franchise was awarded to women over 30, why are 51% of the population seen as a monolithic block?  Most would think it absurd if anyone assumed that two men thought the same, and shared the same concerns just because we were men.  Why do people think it’s true of women?

We have a Minister for Women, as if you can all be represented by one government department.  If you search ‘Women’s Issues’ on the internet a whole host of pressure groups, the UN, NGOs and Governmental agencies come up.  All assuming you all, all 51% of you, face the same challenges, share the same beliefs, and feel the same way.  That’ mad. 

I’ve rarely meet any woman who thinks the same thing for long (sorry I couldn’t resist that).  Finding two men or women in lockstep is rare the idea we can treat every women on earth the same is crazy.  Incidentally if you search ‘Men’s Issues’ online, you mainly get links to a series of rather sarcastic newspaper articles.  None assume all men are the same.

One measurable area for categorising the sexes is voting.  Women vote 8% more on average for Democrats than Republicans in the US, that’s a lot, but still only 54 to 46.  Hardly all women in lockstep. 

In the UK General Election of 2017.  The female vote went 43% both to Conservative and Labour.  In France the gender gap had about 4% more women voting for Macron than men.  Men were more likely to vote for the female candidate Le Pen.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_French_presidential_election

In Italy’s 2018 General Election, the Centre Left and Five Star votes we’re evenly split between men and women.  The Centre Right coalition.  The latest incarnation of the group set-up by that well known feminist, Silvio Berlusconi.  Had a quarter of a percent lead in women’s votes over men.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Italian_general_election

The differences of opinion within a gender are far, far greater than the differences of opinion between genders.  Does anyone here think a women in Coulsdon, and a woman in Cairo share more in common, than any random woman and man in either plan?  I think it’s insulting to you individuality to think of women as one group.

I aim to persuade you tonight, that the fact the government, the media, many social commentators, and far too many men ignore the diversity womanhood.  This dismissal of your individual essence is wrong. It is in fact so wrong, it could make you angry.  I believe it should make you angry and militant as hell.

Feminism

How does the assumption, that all women think the same, play across these supposed women’s issues.

Let’s look at Feminism.  You might think women could be classed together as feminists?  Except of course, a 2018 YouGov poll, found that only 34% of women in the UK said they were a feminist.   This number ranges between 8% and 40% across Europe.  Among Millennials the number was less than 20%.

Reference: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47006912

The Pew Research Centre showed in the US, men and women have a similar weighting of importance on issues from the Economy, Health Care, Education, Social Security, and for that matter Foreign Policy.

Reference: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/28/a-closer-look-at-the-gender-gap-in-presidential-voting/ft_16-07-28_gendergap_420px/

Significant gender gaps only came in for the Environment, Trade Policy and this being the US Abortion.

Abortion

That brings me onto the issue above all others that is seen as a woman’s issue, abortion.  A hugely divisive issue, I am generally keen to avoid. However, it is an issue that is spoken about as if all women as on one side.  Of course this is not the case.

A YouGov poll in 2013 shown 80% of UK women said life began at ‘some time before birth’, with 53 per cent saying that ‘life begins at conception’.  Across recent polls, women are more in favour of restrictions around abortion access than men.

Reference: https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/on-abortion-most-women-agree-with-jeremy-hunt/?sfns=mo

In the US 31% of Women, nearly a third, want Roe v Wade, the judgment that made abortion a constitutional right, overturned.

Reference: https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/poll-finding/kff-poll-public-opinion-and-knowledge-on-reproductive-health-policy/

My point here again is that no one should attempt to speak for all women.  Any woman’s individuality should never be subsumed into global grouping that simply doesn’t exist.

Working

Women’s rights, to trade their labour, as freely as men,   has long been fought for.  Again it is often assumed, all women want to work and be successful in careers.  I’m sure we have all known women who are happy being full time mothers.  And indeed women conflicted between working and spending time with their children.  That’s not to say we don’t also all know many women successful in their careers.  The point is all women are different in what they want.

Looking at how many women work across the globe, it’s clear the feminist assumption that all women want to work is just plain wrong.  I expect differences between the developing a developed world.  Differences between religions and regions.

But what’s not clear to me is why Belgium, France and Japan all at around 50% of women working are so different from Canada, Sweden and Singapore at around 60% or Iceland at over 70%. 

Reference: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS?end=2018&start=2018&view=map

These are all rich countries.  None are especially religious, they are all democracies, where women enjoy significant choice and freedom.  Why are they so different?

It’s almost as if women are different and not all aligned.  As feminist campaigners and others who presume to speak for you all, assume all women to be.

Get militant – Sport

Now having made the case that all women are not a clear cut group.   I’m going to ask for some leeway from the society and share some issues I believe should of concern to all women.  In fact they should be of concern to us all, male and female.

Most of us will remember the London 2012 Olympics and the night when Jessica Ennis won the heptathlon Gold.  I don’t remember Virginia Wade winning Wimbledon in 1977,   but I do know that was a great moment for British Sport.  I do remember Dame Kelly Holmes two golds in Athens, Tessa Sanderson’s Gold in Los Angeles and Sharron Davies’ Silver in Moscow.  These were all amazing nights for sport.  For British sport, and women’s sport.

At the end of the last football season, Pep Guardiola the Manchester City manager,   said his team would not be the first side to win an English domestic treble should they beat Watford in the FA Cup final.  Because “the women have done it”, referring to the Arsenal Ladies team who won the domestic treble, in 2006-07.

It’s a fair comparison, however we shouldn’t compare men and women directly in sport.  Biological men with average extra height, weight and strength outperform women at almost every sport.

To give you an idea of the difference.  The last Olympic women’s 100 meter winner ran 10.49 seconds.  The men’s, 9.58 seconds.  You have to go back to 1928 before todays, women’s Gold Medallist would beat the men’s Gold Medallist.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_metres_at_the_Olympics

Andy Murray has a fairly leisurely top serve speed in Men’s tennis at 141mph.

Serena Williams one of the fastest female servers, at 128mph.  Places her basically nowhere on the men’s rankings for speed of service.

Reference: https://tenniscompanion.org/fastest-tennis-serves/

Olympic records in weightlifting are surprisingly closer.  The competition is split into weight categories, but even here only the very heaviest category of women overtakes the lowest category of men.  The strongest men by comparison lift half as much again as the strongest women.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_records_in_weightlifting

I say this to make the simple point, men’s and women’s bodies are different.

To have a level playing field in adult sport.  Men must complete against men, and Women against women.  Recently this is changing.

In February it was reported that a Connecticut high school transgender athlete transitioning to female, won the 55-meter dash……. Setting a new girl’s state record.  Another transgender athlete, placed second in the race.

Reference: https://metrovoicenews.com/is-it-fair-transgender-athletes-and-high-school-sports/

CeCe Telfer, won the women’s 400 metre hurdle national title,   in the US in May.  Previously he finished just 10th at the regional Northeast Championships back in 2016.  Now she’s the national champion.

Olympic Silver medal winner Sharron Davies calls for a chromosome split saying “If we are not careful then in 10 years all the records in men’s sport will be held by men and all the records in women’s sport will be held by women who carry a Y chromosome”. 

As former Tennis champion Martina Navratilova said “A man can decide to be female, win everything in sight and then reverse his decision.”

I hasten to add if any of the women here feel they would like to show that their advanced Kung Fu skills can beat a man, especially this one, I am sure you are right.

I would like to point out I am referring to top athletes not the average man in the street, and I make these points only to aid the debate.

But the point is.  Women deserve a chance to compete at sport.  Girls deserved a chance to compete and win, not be held back by the boys.  They deserve a fair shout.  I want my nieces to have, a chance to win a race, swim and come first, hit the ball further than the other girls.  Not simply to always come second to bigger and stronger boys.

How can you not be angry?  How can you not be militant at these opportunities being taken away from your daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughters?

Changing rooms

I think it is fair to say many women feel “uncomfortable” seeing men “parading around naked” in front of them.  A gender-neutral “changing village” was created as part of a £10m refurbishment at Bath Sports and Leisure Centre.

To quote one user: “For some women this is extremely uncomfortable. It’s a safety issue. Women are far more likely to be sexually assaulted in unisex facilities.”  “Not everybody with their toddler would like to be confronted by men with everything out.”

Reference: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-46862566

It is not unreasonable for women to feel safe in changing rooms.  Why the drive to unisex facilities?  I suspect the vast majority of men don’t want them either.  Having spent a couple of hundred years giving women more and more freedom from men over their bodies.  Why aren’t women getting angry when it’s taken away from you?

Arranged Marriage

If you’re happy with your lot here.  You might not be so happy with the treatment of women further afield.  Still today 55% of the marriages in the world are arranged.

That’s not necessarily wrong.  There are many successful arrange marriages.
Divorce rates in this country suggest choice isn’t always a great selection method.  But what is more worrying, is that in an arranged marriage, the man is usually 4.5 years older than the woman.  That gaps not that much, it is higher than most couples I know, but not outrageous.  As always an average hides the extremes at the edges.  For instance 48% of the girls who are involved in an arranged marriage in South Asia are under 18.  In Niger 26%.of the girls are less than 15.  In Afghanistan 80% of the marriages are considered forced, as opposed to just arranged.

Reference: https://brandongaille.com/25-shocking-arranged-marriages-statistics/

Is this not enough to make you angry.  Is this not something all people but especially women should be fighting to change?

Education

Education is one of the best ways to fight these injustices.  Especially female education and empowerment.  The gender parity index measures the ratio of the female to male literacy of 15 to 24 year olds.

Of the 167 countries they have data for, most have parity in literacy rates between the genders.  Indeed Jamaica, Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Zimbabwe have significantly greater female than male, literacy rates.  However 22% of countries have significantly greater male than female literacy rates.  With Afghanistan, Benin, Central African Republic, Chad, Liberia, and Mali having male literacy rates at almost twice that of women.

How can this be right, as a school governor in Croydon for many years, I have never once seen boys outperform girls,   in the English grading in any of the schools I have worked with.  Yet these countries have boys twice as literate and girls.  This isn’t the 1920’s, this is education received in the 21^st Century.  These are girls today that are not taught at the same rate as boys.

Why aren’t those who call themselves feminists more militant, more radical, and calling for more change on this?

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

How to get militant.

On the one hand, the media, politicians, and campaign groups, often claim to speak on behalf of ‘all women.  A group that simply doesn’t exist.  Yet at the same time they are falling to act,   where women as a group are not treated fairly.

Maybe we should take a leaf out of the history books.  100 years ago Suffragettes were chaining themselves to railings, and refusing to pay taxes and fines.  In a Reign of Terror, in 1913 there were 250 arson or other destruction attacks in just six-months.  Window-breaking, post-box burning and telegraph cable breaking, were common.

In ancient Rome protestors for women’s rights employed methods, from public demonstrations, to providing financial support, and even to acts of mass poisoning.

Reference: https://brewminate.com/nevertheless-they-persisted-womens-demonstrations-in-ancient-rome/ 

What do we have today – A Facebook post.  A Selfie.  Maybe a tweet!

You and all of our daughters deserve the chance to play at, and to compete and win at sports.  You all deserve privacy in the changing rooms, and across the globe.  All women deserve the chance to choose their partners, and gain the fundamental literacy skills, needed to make real choices in their lives.

I am angry, these young women aren’t getting a fair start.

I hope you are too. 

• Take action, write to a paper, or politician. 
• Join a campaign group
• Join a protest
• Run for office

But mostly become ridiculously militant, about it.

Summing Up

Women today have every reason to be militant.  Not as a group, but as individuals.  I don’t think of my female colleagues, friends and family members as one group.  I am genuinely annoyed many in the elite both male and female think you are.  I hope you feel the same.

The women I meet are not shrinking violets.  They hold great jobs, are the lynchpin of busy families, often care for elderly relatives and in the case of my older sisters are still quite capable of bossing around their ‘kid’ brother.

The last thing they need is media and ‘women’s’ lobby groups telling them how to live their lives.  Fight back, fight back like hell, I ask you.

If this isn’t enough, the rights women have fought for, for over a hundred years are being eroded, in the name of progress.  Without denying how anyone feels, you, your daughters and granddaughters deserve the chance, to complete at sports and get changed in private. 

I grew up watching a strong female Prime Minister, pitted against women supporting striking miners and women camping at Greenham Common.  I saw Mother Teresa being criticised for her support for Indira Gandhi and I saw Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin sing, Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves.

Where now are these women striking out, standing strong, and Acting in defiance?

Across the globe your sisters are being denied basic literacy, denied the right to choose their partner and sometimes even denied the right to show their face in public.

If those aren’t good reasons to get out and get militant I don’t know what are.