GDPR indexed.

Well, it's created a lot of uncertainty, for a regulation that spans just 50 pages (and 30 of preamble). But it's not very accessible, because it's hard to find an indexed version. Well, if you want one of those, here it is.

In May, the EU's General Data Protection Regulations comes into force. The EU bill is only 86 pages, and there's a PDF published at eur-lex.europa.eu (oh, awesome, the secure version of that link isn't securely configured).

Also not awesome is the fact that the PDF doesn't have an index. So it's to find the bits you need to read. So, I've created one, like I did with the UK's IP Bill before. The process of creating the index has helped me understand the regulation much better, and I hope if helps others too.

View HERE! DOWNLOAD HERE! (Do let me know if that download link fails. I'm not sure I trust Google Docs here).

Of course, as we rush to prepare for GDPR, the Government hasn't actually published UK law on this. There's a Bill that's been through the Lords, and had a first reading in the Commons though. You can follow its progress at [https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/dataprotection.html]. Again, published as a PDF without an index, so I've made one with an index. Don't forget, it's subject to amendment. I guess it's pretty likely there will be amendments, but I've no idea how important they'll be.

View the Bill here DOWNLOAD HERE!

Finally, there's the Information Commissioner's guidance on the matter. As it's they who'll actually be issuing fines, following their guidance seems like a good idea.

IP Bill with Table of Contents

When the Government published its draft Investigatory Powers Bill, it provided a nearly useful PDF copy. "Nearly", because the formatting is chaotic (eg, sometimes you can select a section title with its number, and sometimes you can't).

So, I used the very good (nearly excellent PDF Outliner) to create a table of contents. Unfortunately, its automatic outliner didn't work (because of the aforementioned chaos in the PDF itself). So it was quite a tedious process. Tip: use Apple keyboard preferences to create a keyboard shortcut for "Number Sequentially...". It's probably also useful to remap several other keys for large docs like this, for ergonomic reasons.

Anyway, Javier Ruiz of the absolutely excellent Open Rights Group, asked if I was going to produce a copy of the now published Bill. So, here it is. Tip: hit the download button at the top of the page.

Draft Investigatory Powers Bill

The government published a Draft Investigatory Powers Bill yesterday. Of course, they didn't really get the format right. For example, they published it in a PDF with chaotic layout. It didn't include a useful Table of Contents (you know, that you can click to navigate, for example).

However, they did publish it using the Open Government License, which allows you and me to modify and redistribute the document. So, I've added a useful table of contents, to make it easier to see the structure, and navigate the document.


So, here it is. Note that the document is in three parts: a preamble with some government guides to various parts, the draft Bill itself, and then official guidance notes on the draft Bill.

[Edited to add: note that you won't see the table of contents if you view this PDF in your web browser. You have to download it, and open it in a PDF viewer like Apple's Preview, or iBooks, or Kindle for Mac. I presume Adobe PDF viewer will also show the ToC, but I haven't tested that. Anyway, to facilitate that, I've also changed the link to a direct download link.]

Download the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill  (first draft and guidance) with a proper table of contents.

Businesses must treat everyone fairly.

UKIP Lewes District Councillor and prospective MEP Donna Edmunds said, on the Lewes Forum, today

"…all business owners, Christian, Muslim, gay, straight, should be allowed to withhold their services from whomever they choose whenever they choose."

She, apparently, thinks that businesses should be free to choose, but also thinks that they should choose to do the right thing. I presume, also that she thinks they would do the right thing. But, she's ignoring history here. Rosa Parks, and countless others, have fought hard to get equal rights in all walks of life, not just the right to use buses and enrol at Universities. In the end, the rights had to be granted through legislation.

There are two reasons that legislation was used. First, progress without it was just too slow, and second: that's how we express our views in a democracy. Of course, as a Liberal, I'd rather avoid legislation where possible, but in this case it's clear that legislation was required. Businesses benefit from all sorts of legislation that protects their legal identity, intellectual "property", physical property, and accrued financial assets. In return, we expect certain standards of behaviour from them: including fair treatment of all citizens.

I'm pleased to say, the condemnation has been unanimous. The BBC used it to illustrate the "pitfalls of UKIP's 'major party status'". The Daily Mail pointed out that Nigel Farage thought UKIP had eliminated this sort of thing, and that current candidates were "of a calibre to be proud of".  The Metro called it "Today's UKIP meltdown news". And every other story I've seen covering this has condemned her. Of course, Norman Baker has, too.

I'm also pleased to say that Lewes District Council has issued this statement:

"Date: Wednesday, 5 March 2014
Lewes District Council statement
Councillor Donna Edmunds, Lewes District Councillor for Barcombe, has expressed her personal view about business owners withholding services from whomever they choose.
A Lewes District Council spokesperson said “Councillor Edmunds’ views are her personal opinion and are not shared by the District Council. 

Lewes District Council has a statutory duty under The Equality Act 2010 to protect people from discrimination. We believe that everyone who lives and works in the area, and those who come to visit us, should feel welcome, safe, valued, included and respected. 

All officers and councillors receive regular training opportunities and there is no excuse for them not to be aware of their duties as council employees and elected members”.

Ends/

Lib Dem conference directory

The Lib Dem conference directory is published as a pdf. It has fringe listings, and handy maps. Except that, incomprehensibly, the maps are badly compressed bitmaps. The maps are also available as high quality images, and it's trivial (with Apple's OSX "print preview" app, for example) to replace the crap maps with the good ones. It took me about 10 minutes, which is why I don't understand why the published directory has the crap maps.

I've also found the official conference app unusable. It takes about a minute to start, which is far too long when you're looking for the location of a fringe event, for example. These things need to start instantly. The "killer" feature of the app is, or would be, the ability to create a personal agenda. In theory, you can do this: adding debates, fringe events, and training events. In practice, nothing that I "add" to my agenda actually gets added.

It would work quite nicely, even with the delay, if "adding" an event would just create an entry in my calendar app. Actually, that would be better than creating another diary in the official app. But that doesn't appear to have been considered.

So, that's why I've created a Google calendar with the main conference agenda, and a couple of the more popular fringe events. I've also made myself a cut down version of the directory: with legible maps, and fewer adverts (many of which are also illegible because they're over-compressed bitmaps instead of vector graphics).

Autumn Conference Calendar

I've published the Lib Dems' Autumn Conference Calendar on my Google Calendar. You can subscribe to it at http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/eiloart.com_ov92vs7r372538okh8ibq1uefs%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

It's just the two consultation sessions, and the main conference agenda at the moment. I'll add some of the bigger fringe attractions later.

My Heart Op

We don't know the reason for the stroke that I had in 2011.

It could be high blood pressure: my blood pressure is high, but not very high. Blood pressure is responsible for a third of strokes, and may be caused by excess dietary salt. I've been trying to reduce my salt intake, and I'm also taking Ramipril daily. My blood pressure has come down somewhat, but it's hard to get consistently accurate measurements.

It could be a Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO) - a hole in the heart that's supposed to close at birth. In about 25% of people, it doesn't close properly. However, 50% of people who have an early stroke have a PFO. It's possible that a clot forms in the hole, then escapes and lodges in the brain, for example.
PFO closure is a simple, day operation. Imagine pushing a tiny cocktail umbrella through the hole, then opening it up: but it's a more sophisticated bit of kit than that! It can be inserted through a large vein in the leg. It's a very safe operation, and there's some evidence that it really can reduce recurrence of Transient Ischemic Attacks (mini strokes, whose effects last only a very short time).

There are three studies that show a reduction in adverse events in the five years after the operation. None have shown a statistically significant effect, but adverse events turn out to be very rare, so larger studies may be needed. It may be that aggregating the statistics from the three studies would demonstrate a statistically significant result. Anyway, having declined the operation after the first study was published, I've now decided to go ahead with it.

I was very pleased to be given a choice of dates for the operation. I turned down May 1 (the day before the County Council Elections) and May 8th, the annual meeting of Lewes District Council. Instead I've elected to have the operation on May 15th. They only do it on Wednesdays, it seems.

I still have the altered sensation in my left side: often pain, but generally hypersensitivity to cold, heat, pressure, and so on. I think it's probably going to be permanent.

Edited to add: Yesterday (16 April), I got a phone call to say that the 15th May date isn't actually available. I had a choice of 1 May, or to go back on the waiting list. I chose to go for 1 May. Also, my wife and I watched a Holby City staff member (Tara Lo) die on the operating table, which is discouraging, even if entirely irrelevant! The letter that I got from the hospital says that my consultant has performed this procedure 260 times, and not had serious adverse affects. Tara's operation, in contrast, was (a) a high risk procedure, (b) on a brain tumour, and (c) fictional.

Conference Calendar

The agenda for the Liberal Democrats' spring conference has just been published. You can read the announcement on Lib Dem Voice. I maintain a Google Calendar called LDCONF in which I put our conference events, for my own purposes. But, I also make that calendar publicly available.

You can see it below, or at http://s.coop/1c87r or,

you can the events to your Outlook, Apple iCal, or smartphone calendar by downloading the file at http://s.coop/ldconf2012 or,

you can subscribe to the calendar (and get future updates in your calendar) at
http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/eiloart.com_ov92vs7r372538okh8ibq1uefs%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic

I've taken a different approach to fringe, which is to add each time slot as a single calendar item, and put details of the events into the calendar item notes. If I find the time, I might split these out, but I'm not sure that won't just make a complete mess of calendar displays!

SIlver Skins for Mountain Lion

A while back, annoyed by the appearance of the Address Book and iCal applications in OSX 10.7 (Lion), and inspired by Giles of Simple and Usable, I created a silver skin for Address Book.

Mountain Lion has improved the Address Book interface, and renamed it "Contacts". It's great that you can now see groups, group members, and contact details in one window; they've done away with the awkward switching between groups. But they've retained the somewhat annoying attempt to look like a real, leather bound, address book.

Similarly, there's a better appearance to the renamed Calendars, but they've retained the silly leather bound look, and torn off paper look.

So, I've created silver skins for both of these. And I've gone one better by creating a proper installer package. You can choose which app to fix using the Customise button, but by default it'll just fix both of them.

The installer should only work on Mountain Lion, and it should refuse to change apps on other versions of OSX. Also, it requires that Contacts.app and Calendar.app are in the usual locations.

update 21 August: fixed link. Sorry!

Should a banker be paid more than a nurse?

I'm listening to BBC Radio 4's Public Philosopher. Today's topic is "Should a banker be paid more than a nurse?"

I think the answer is "no". Banking services, though, are scalable, so individuals can get rich (and throughout, here, I mean filthy rich) providing those services. The next few paragraphs explain.

The BBC programme is an exploration of the moral arguments. The explanations of the high pay for bankers are given as:

1. bankers have more talent, 
2. bankers work harder,
3. society values bankers more,
4. the market values bankers more.

Let's deal with talent and hard work first. Nurses often work extraordinary long hours. Their training requirements are higher, so they have more talent (both professions owe more to training than personality), and their knowledge base is broader. A banker may, perhaps, have a talent for economics than a nurse, but collectively the bankers don't seem to be in control. The nursing profession, on the other hand, doesn't have sudden widespread crashes in performance. Anything that looks like that would probably be a failure of public health professionals, or more likely the press; witness the MMR hoax.

I think it's pretty clear that most people value nurses more than bankers. We'd all rather live in a society with no finance professionals than a society with no health professionals. We don't like it when our bank branch closes, but we protest when our local hospital closes. If society doesn't reflect that preference in individual pay, then that's because some structure in society isn't reflecting the aggregate opinion of its members. That structure would be the market.

But, what is it about the market that gets banker so well paid? Much better paid even than doctors, or NHS bosses. I think it's this:

We all make a living either by creating wealth or by tapping the income or wealth of other individuals - usually through an organisation. But, wealth creation only happens through creating exchangeable physical products, say through agriculture or manufacturing. Neither bankers nor nurses do this. They get paid for providing services, which are not exchangeable.

Service providers get their income from tapping the income or wealth of people who buy their services. There are two ways to get rich doing this: either tap the incomes of lots of other people, or tap the incomes of a smaller number of richer people. But, to get really rich, you need to provide a service that lots of people can use. That is, an impersonal service - one which you can provide many copies of. That service might be a music recording, a piece of writing, a televised performance or a bank account. Of course, you need an army of sales people to funnel the money your way, but those people don't need to be highly talented or well paid. In fact, it helps if they're not well paid.

A nurse, however, doesn't provide a replicable service. She (or he, but usually she) provides a personal service that can't be duplicated. It has no value if you know you're going to get exactly the same service as the person in the next bed. Even if you have the same condition as your neighbour, you may respond differently to treatment, for example. And, even if you did need exactly the same treatment, the nurse can't provide that treatment on a CD, or over the web, to many people simultaneously. Nursing isn't a spectator sport.

 So, this is where the market fails. Any individual will value their nurse more than their banker. But no nurse will be able to get paid for nursing services by more than a few people at a time. OK, a nurse might write a book about nursing, or run a nursing company, but neither of those things are nursing (the first is writing, the second is provision of management services).

In fact, the services that we value most are personal services. And, the people providing those services are never going to get rich, except by providing those services to people who are even richer. Oh, and if you're providing a personal service, and you want a higher income than your average client, then you need to be draining their wealth, or subsidised through taxation, or providing an occasional service that they really value.

There are, of course, elements of the health service, in which people can get rich. They can do it by cherry picking clients (private health provision), but they can't get wealthy in the same way as a banker, or footballer, or pop star. They can do it in management, but they have to be managing a really large organisation, and probably in the private sector. They can do it in manufacturing of drugs or medical equipment - because drugs and medical equipment are replicable and therefore their manufacture is not a personal service. In fact, it's wealth creating, and it's scalable.

I've made a Google calendar for the Liberal Democrats spring conference.

You can subscribe to it at this address: http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/eiloart.com_ov92vs7r372538okh8ibq1uefs%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

There's little chance that I'll update anything on the diary now (unless you tweet @ianeiloart with errata), so you're probably just as well to add the events by clicking here: http://s.coop/ldconf2012

My Brain

I woke up on the 17th, a month after my stroke, with new pain in my wrist and knee. Previously the evil had withdrawn from those regions. I was worried that this reversal of progress might indicate a new stroke. My wife drove me to A&E, where I had a new battery of tests. They called my consultant, who ordered another MRI scan, and asked to see me after that. I swear that scanner is getting noisier - still, just the one scan this time.

I went straight up to see the consultant and she had the scan on her system straight away, which was pretty impressive. I know, that shouldn't be impressive these days, but…

A slice of my brain.

Anyway, I took this snap with my phone. It shows a slice through my head, viewed as if from below. It doesn't show the stroke damage - that's lower down than this slice - but I liked this slice because it shows my eyes and optic nerve, so it's quite easy to read. You can also see one ear (I've played with the contrast a bit, and you can't see the other one), and my "wonky nose" as the consultant put it. The black 'holes' near the front of my eyes are actually the lenses, not the pupils.

The good news is that this particular scan can show new stroke damage - that is damage that's occurred in the last ten days. And we didn't see any. So, I'm somewhat reassured that my brain isn't just gradually melting away. And, I've been prescribed some new drugs to help with the pain. They're gabapentin, which is also used to treat epilepsy.

Stroke update

I want to describe the symptoms that I'm feeling, and how they've changed since I had my stroke on 17th October - almost three weeks ago. I've definitely improved in some ways, having recovered much touch sensation, but I'm also feeling more pain and cold.

My stroke (for which I'm still awaiting a definite diagnosis, by the way) was a pure sensory stroke. It hasn't affected my mobility or cognition in any way. That is, apart from a slight lack of confidence when using my left hand. Fortunately, I'm right handed.

Half Michelin man

Currently, I'm feeling the following symptoms pretty much all the time, but all only on the left side. In short, I feel like my left side has been blown up like a balloon, but the sensation is different in different parts.

In my face, I feel like I have a black eye and cauliflower ear, and am a bit numb on the chin. The ear is constantly slightly painful, as if someone had punched me there quite hard a few hours ago. The eye sometimes feels a bit dry, and I use optrex eye drops a few times a week. I don't know if it really is dry, but the eye drops do seem to help.

My neck feels stiff, which is a symptom that has come on in the past few days. Lifting heavy shopping bags hurts my shoulder more than it should. The upper arm feels constantly as if I have a blood pressure monitor inflated on it, but isn't painful. The lower arm including part of my hand (but only the little finger) feels like it's slightly sunburned. When I'm tired, or cold, the pain extends right up my arm, and becomes quite serious. I haven't resorted to pain killers yet, and have no idea if they would work, but this does keep me awake at night somewhat.

My side, over my ribs, feels like it's ballooned up. When I wear a heavy coat, it feels like I'm carrying a few phone directories under my arm. That's the most peculiar of all the sensations, since it feels like my arm should be sticking out almost horizontally. And yet, there's no apparent motion impairment. Between my rib cage and my waist is numb, but I'm please that the chafing sensation at the waist has subsided now.

When I sit down, it feels slightly uncomfortable. It always feels as if someone has left a wooden ruler on my chair, so I always have to check that there's not actually anything there. My thigh also feels constricted, just like the upper arm. Also like the upper arm, it can become painful when cold, but not to the same extent. From the knee down, I feel relatively normal!

Signs of improvement

There have been changes, particularly over the first few days, and I'll try to describe them. On the day of my stroke, I was sitting in an armchair and tried but failed to lift my arm. Looking down, I realised my arm had slipped off the arm of the chair, and was trapped between my side and the chair arm. Within a day or so, I'd recovered enough sensation in my arm that that wasn't possible.

Also, on that first day, I was walking very tentatively because I could not feel the weight on my foot, so I wasn't sure of my balance. In fact, I was walking independently and quite well, but I had to look down to be sure of myself. The next day, though, I was walking normally, and my wife still complains that I walk too fast!

The strangest sensation on that first day came when I need to remove ear-plugs after an MRI scan. MRI scans are very noisy, and the radiographer had inserted ear-plugs for me. After the scan, though, I was left to remove them myself.

I took the right one out first. Then, I raised my left hand, and touched something, but what? It had to be my ear, but neither my hand nor my ear was giving me any clues. It was simply impossible to remove the plug with my left hand. So, I reached around with the right. It was still tricky. Of course, I couldn't see, so I had to grope around to find the plug in what felt like someone else's ear. A week later, when I went for a repeat scan, I had no problem inserting and removing an ear plug with my left hand.

Pain management

I mentioned that I've not been using pain killers. That's partly because the pain isn't severe, and partly because I'm concerned about how pain killers might interact with my other medication - which included aspirin for the first two weeks. The best way to deal with the pain is just to get on with life, and take my mind off it. Staying warm helps, too.

From what I've read, there's a good chance that things will improve, but it could take a few months and may not be a complete recovery. Exercising the affected areas might help - apparently recovery in the arm is more common than in the leg, and that may be because the arm gets more exercise just in daily activity.

Finally, on the Thursday after the stroke, my wife printed out some diagrams of a body, and we compared how a simultaneous light touch on both sides (for example, on both elbows) felt. At each point, I rated the sensation on the left compared with the sensation on the right. At many points, I could only just sense something on the left, and at some points not at all. At other points, I was super-sensitive. We repeated this exercise a week later, and there was a dramatic improvement almost everywhere. However, there are many other types of sensitivity - to heat, to sharp pricks, to cold and so on, and we've not measured any of those.

My stroke.

Last Monday 17th October, at about 8:30am, I was sitting at home when I felt dizzy, and suddenly numb on the left side of my body. The dizziness, and the numbness came in waves and I hoped it would subside. After a few minutes of this, though, I started to worry. Although the symptoms were particularly strong in my arm and chest, I didn't think I was having a heart attack, because there was no pain. In fact, it felt quite pleasant. My father had had a stroke in his early sixties, and I knew that a generalised hemilateral effect was likely to to be something neurological. So, I called my wife and we decided to call NHS direct.

They took me through some questions, again ruling out heart attack, and sent an ambulance. By the time the ambulance arrived (only a few minutes later), my symptoms had subsided. As the paramedics went through similar questions, I began to feel a little fraudulent. They took me to the ambulance to check my blood pressure, and temperature, and wired me up to an ECG machine. The ECG and temperature were normal, but my blood pressure a bit high. The paramedics offered to take me in to the Royal Sussex County Hospital, for a check over.

On the way, my symptoms returned, and were much more intense. I felt dizzier, and the numbness was more widespread, and more intense. It seems likely now that this was a stroke, and that the earlier attack (about an hour had passed) was a TIA or "mini stroke". So, somewhat amazingly, I was already on the way to hospital when I had my stroke - if that's what it was.

On arrival at the hospital, I was assessed pretty quickly, and a stroke team assembled around me within about 15 minutes. I scored one out of twenty-five on some scale or other, according to all the prodding, poking and various other tests. Not high enough to justify administration of thrombolytic drugs, but had I required them we were still well within the three hour schedule. While being prodded and poked, blood samples were taken, and afterwards I was sent for a CT scan, and then taken to the stroke ward.

There, I was assessed again. I was told that I'd be in overnight, and then taken away for an MRI scan, and ultrasound scans. The ultrasound scans showed that my carotid arteries were nice and clean. I got to see them live, and that was quite cheering. I think they were particularly looking for build up of fats at the point where the common carotid artery branches into the internal and external carotid arteries.

Back on the ward, I was further cheered by being offered a choice of six different vegan meals! When the meals came, they were piping hot, and reasonably tasty. Not haute cuisine, but certainly way above my expectation. And, they had soya milk for my breakfast Weetabix. My bed had a sea view, and I was set to stop for the week. That is, until the night shift started!

I don't think anybody got much sleep that night. One patient seemed to think we were all police officers being subjected to some horrendous illegal experiments. He was threatening to throw furniture around, and ordering nurses to -variously- attend to his every whim, or leave him alone. Fortunately, he never made good on any of his threats. The nurses were amazingly patient throughout. The shouty man calmed down when the ward got busier in the morning; perhaps because he had more to think about than his own fantasies. Unfortunately for the nurses, another patient took great exception to being dressed, and whacked one of them pretty hard. She had to go to A&E with a suspected broken nose.

I had a load more bloods taken in the morning - about six vials. I learned that these vials come vacuum filled, so they literally suck the blood out of you. I was seen by a consultant, who was satisfied that I was fit to discharge. Still numb all down the left side, but with some sensation returning to my hand, foot and lower leg.

Yesterday, I returned to work. But, today I had more MRI scans - two head scans and two neck scans. They included MRAs, looking at blood vessels, and one used Gadolinium contrast agent. That was a total of an hour, inside a machine so noisy that it was a bit like being stuck inside a giant dial-up modem.

Now, I'm getting used to life, still trying to work out what this means. I feel like I'm carrying a stack of phone directories under my arm, and it's uncomfortable to lie on my previously preferred left side. I think I'm tiring more easily, and my arm seems to get painful when I am tired. I think I have a full range of movement, and haven't lost any strength. I may be a bit more grumpy than I was, but my speech seems normal, and Tories and John Humphrys still make me cross.

And, I love the NHS! The nurses, nursing assistants, porters, doctors, caterers and technicians, -and my wife- were all really professional, kind and attentive. One of the paramedics waved at me from his ambulance as I walked through Lewes at the weekend!

30 Oct - edited to correct spelling of John Humphrys' name.

Lewes District Tories paid to do nothing.

Lewes District Tories run the only council in Sussex to pay their own members for a cabinet role without portfolio. Actually, there are three of them.

Until May 2011, Lewes District Council had a cabinet with nine members, six from the majority group (Liberal Democrats) and three from the minority group (Conservatives). Apart from Hastings, Lewes was the only local authority in Sussex to have a mixed cabinet. When the Tories won control, they decided that the cabinet would be all Tory.

It's a bit hard to keep up with their reshuffles since then, but now they have a cabinet with nine members. Three of those members have no portfolio, but receive (or are entitled to receive) a full "special responsibility allowance" despite having no special responsibility. They do, of course, attend cabinet meetings, but there's already a much lower special responsibility allowance for members of committees that meet frequently.

I decided to take a look at what the other local authorities (District, Borough, City and Council) in Sussex do. I didn't include town and parish councils, since their members receive far lower allowances.

Hastings is the only one with a cabinet that includes opposition members. They have six Labour members, and four Tories. Five of the Labour members have a portfolio, and the sixth does not receive a special responsibility allowance. The four Tories have no portfolio, and receive an allowance of about half that of the other members.

All of the rest have cabinets of a leader, and five, six, or seven, other members members (nine in the case of Brighton and Hove), and every one of those members has a portfolio of responsibilities.

So, it seems that only the Lewes District Tories think it necessary to award a "Special Responsibility Allowance" to one (well, three actually) of their own members without a special responsibility.

Brighton and Hove - all ten cabinet members are Green party members, and have a portfolio.

East Sussex County Council - all eight cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.
Eastbourne - all six cabinet members are Liberal Democrats, and each has a portfolio.
Wealden  - all six cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.
Rother - all eight cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.
Hastings - ten cabinet members. Six Labour, four Conservatives. Five portfolios are held by Labour members, the sixth does not receive a special responsibility allowance.

West Sussex County Council - all eight cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio
Adur - all six cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.
Arun - all seven cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.
Chichester - all seven cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.

Worthing - all six cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.

Mid Sussex - all six cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.

Horsham - all seven cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.

Crawley - all eight cabinet members are Conservatives, and each has a portfolio.

Blood, Drugs and Violence - at Lib Dem conference.

The Lib Dem conference agenda for Autumn 2011 includes policy motions on Science Not Stigma: Ending the Blood Ban (p39), Protecting Individuals and Communities from Drug Harms (p24), and Tackling Violence against Women (p30). Full texts of these motions and others, are found in the agenda (pdf).

If you're going, and you have an electronic diary, then you may find this iCalendar file useful: LDconf-09-2011.ics The information here is taken from the very nice new pocket diary, but please let me know in the comments below if you see any errors.

You won't see Labour or the Tories debating these issues. Neither party makes policy at conference. Labour don't even publish their conference agenda!

Edited to add: I've also posted copies of the conference agenda and the conference directory, to which I've added electronic Tables of Contents. Note that they'll only be available here for 30 days. The Tables of Contents make it much easier to use the electronic versions of the papers. Don't forget to also consult the "Conference Extra" papers, with late amendments and editions, available from http://www.libdems.org.uk/autumn_conference_papers.aspx You'll also find full policy documents and consultation papers there.

Silver Address Book

Like me, Giles of Simple and Usable doesn't like the fussy new faux leather appearance for Apple's iCal and Address Book. He's created a new skin for iCal, and inspired by that, I've done the same for Address Book. To use it:

1. Make a copy of Address Book, in case something goes wrong.
2. Download this file (simply a compressed folder of .png files).
3. Quit Address Book.
3. Copy the contents of my file (all the .png files) into "/Applications/Address Book.app/Contents/Resources/"

If you need more detailed instructions, the process is very similar to that described at Simple and Usable

This is what it looks like.

If you wish, you can colour the interface by modifying the files  inwardPointingCards.png inwardPointingGroups.png (the two tabs) and leatherTile.png. Doubtless a variety of alternative hideous skins can be created by modifying just these three files.

Macnix has an easy to install silver skin for each of iCal and the Address Book. I've not tried them, but it looks like the Address Book skin leaves in place quite a lot of unnecessary shadows, faux "stitching" and so on. I've tried to remove as much of that as possible.

Edited to add: I've fixed the link above. Apple killed me.com, so I moved the file to my dropbox.com account. If you like this fix, please open a dropbox account with that link and I'll get a bit more free storage!

That Lib Dem letter in full

Liberal Democrat council leaders wrote a letter to the Times today. I'm pissed off that that meant I had to give a quid to the Murdoch Empire today, but I agree with the content. The letter is also behind the Times Paywall, and printed in today's Times. Only the first few signatories are listed in the print version.

Italics below are mine. I've highlighted those parts because while you can read the misleading headline for free at the Times, you have to pay to read the truth - that this letter is all about Eric Pickles.

In contrast to central government’s runaway spending, local governments have been making savings for years

Sir,

Local government is playing its part in tackling the country’s deficit and advancing the Coalition’s aims of localism and the Big Society. But local, and central, government are being let down by the Communities and Local Government Secretary who appears unwilling to lead the change that’s so desperately needed. Local government has made efficiency savings of 3 per cent in each of the past eight years — in stark contrast to the runaway spending of central government under the previous administration. We’ve also been planning for further saving since the true state of the economy became apparent six months ago.

What has been delivered is a difficult cuts package across all government departments but clearly the most severe is to local government. These cuts will have an undoubted impact on all frontline council services, including care services to the vulnerable.

Rather than assist the country’s recovery by making public-sector savings in a way that can protect local economies and the frontline, the cuts are so structured that they will do the opposite. The local government settlement will take a major hit in this coming financial year and further, smaller, cuts in subsequent years. This front-loading means councils do not have the lead-in time necessary to re-engineer services on a lower-cost base and ease staff cuts without forced, expensive redundancies. Inexplicably, local government is also being denied the opportunity to spread the cost of reorganisation and downsizing over several years — at no cost to central government — which just makes even bigger in-year cuts inevitable The Secretary of State’s role should be to facilitate necessary savings while promoting the advance of localism and the Big Society. Unfortunately, Eric Pickles has felt it better to shake a stick at councillors than work with us.

Local and central government should be united in a shared purpose. Instead of chastising and denigrating local authorities through the media, the Government should deploy all its efforts to help councils minimise the impact on vulnerable communities and frontline services.

We would be delighted to discuss with the Secretary of State how we could take on the difficult challenges shared by all levels of government and would prefer to do this than continue with the gunboat diplomacy which is the current order of the day.

Cllr Richard Kemp

Leader, Liberal Democrat Group, Local Government Association

Cllr Carl Minns

Lib Dem Leader Hull City Council

Cllr Cec Tallack

Lib Dem Leader Milton Keynes

Cllr Paul Tilsley

Lib Dem, Deputy Leader, Birmingham City Council

Cllr David Faulkner

Lib Dem Leader, Newcastle City Council

Cllr Ian Marks

Lib Dem Leader, Warrington Borough Council

Leaders

Cllr Virginia Gay, North Norfolk; Cllr Andrew De Freitas, North East Lincolnshire Council; Cllr Tim Carroll, South Somerset; Cllr Stuart Langhorn, Lancaster City Council; Cllr David Watts, Broxtowe BC; Cllr Tony de Vere, Vale of White Horse; Cllr Keith House, Eastleigh BC; Cllr Anne Turrell, Colchester (NOC); Cllr Sian Reid, Cambridge City; Cllr Alan Connett, Teignbridge DC; Cllr David Budd, Purbeck DC; Cllr Ann De Vecchi, Lewes DC; Cllr Dorothy Thornhill, Watford Mayor; Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson, Leader, Portsmouth City Council

Group Leaders

Cllr Alan Boad, Warwick DC; Cllr Gavin James, Basingstoke & Deane BC; Cllr Tom Smith-Hughes, Essex CC; Cllr Joe Abbott, South Tyneside; Cllr Roger Hayes, Bolton MBC; Cllr Peter Wilcock, Uttlesford BC; Cllr Simon McDougall, Arun DC; Cllr Brendan Haigh, Newark & Sherwood DC; Cllr Nigel Martin, Durham; Cllr Hilary Jones, Derby City Council; Cllr Linda Redhead, Halton; Cllr Sue Carpendale, Babergh DC; Cllr Iain Sharpe, Watford BC; Cllr Kathy Pollard, Suffolk CC; Cllr Maureen Rigg, Stockton; Cllr John Boyce, Oadby & Wigston BC; Cllr Andrew Smith, Chicester DC; Cllr Phil Taylor, Tewkesbury BC; Cllr Len Gates, Test Valley BC; Cllr Ruth Davis, South Gloucestershire; Cllr Tony Gillam, Gedling BC; Cllr Chris Maines, Lewisham BC; Cllr David Milsted, North Dorset DC; Cllr Roger Price, Fareham BC; Cllr Brian Greenslade, Devon CC; Cllr Ian Stewart, Cumbria CC; Cllr Richard Andrews, West Oxfordshire DC; Cllr Margaret Rowley, Wychavon DC; Cllr Ann Buckley, Havant BC; Cllr Jane Parlour, Richmondshire DC; Cllr Alan Sherwell, Aylesbury Vale DC; Cllr Graham Longley, Southend BC; Cllr Zoe Patrick, Oxfordshire CC; Cllr Brian Jeffries, East Riding of Yorkshire; Cllr Bob Sullivan, Waltham Forest BC; Cllr David Lomax, High Peak BC; Cllr Paul Coddington, Doncaster MBC; Cllr Liz Tucker, Worcestershire CC; Cllr Simon Ashley, Manchester City Council; Cllr Roger Walshe, Sevenoaks DC; Cllr John Fisher, Staffs Moorlands; Cllr Paul Morse, Norfolk CC; Cllr Jane Clark, Wealden DC; Cllr Christina Jebb, Staffordshire CC; Cllr David Walker, Charnwood BC; Cllr Noel Rippeth, Gateshead; Cllr Penny Otton, Mid Suffolk DC; Cllr Nan Farmer, Carlisle; Cllr David Foster, Blackburn with Darwen; Cllr Dr Robin Studd, Newcastle under Lyme; Cllr Peter Chegwyn, Gosport BC; Cllr Richard Sharp, Woking BC; Cllr Mary Baldwin, Bucks CC; Cllr Jerry Roodhouse, Warwickshire CC; Cllr David Neighbour, Hart DC; Cllr Arthur Preece, Hartlepool BC; Cllr Nigel Hartin, Shropshire CC; Cllr David Neve, Tunbridge Wells BC; Cllr Geoff Welsh, Blaby DC; Cllr Roger Kutchinsky, Hertsmere BC; Cllr Ross Henley, Taunton Deane BC; Cllr Jack Cohen, Barnet BC; Cllr Julie Morris, Epsom & Ewell; Cllr Terry Stacy, Islington BC; Cllr Alex Perkins, Canterbury City; Cllr Geoff Chamberlain, East Devon DC; Cllr David Fearn, Derbyshire Dales DC; Cllr Helen Dyke, Wyre Forest DC; Cllr Paul English, Craven DC; Cllr Paul Elgood, Brighton & Hove; Cllr Paul Hodgkinson, Cotswold DC

How to rank 39 candidates

If you're a voting rep to the Lib Dem conference, you should have ballot papers and manifesto booklets for six panels and committees, with a total of over 200 candidates. The task is to rank the candidate in each election, with between 20 and 45 candidates in each. That's a pretty daunting task, and promises to be quite time consuming.

I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but here are some tips that'll make it a lot easier.

First, start with one of the shorter ballots: the ELDR council delegation or the International Relations Committee. Read through all the manifestos once, to get an idea of the range of candidates, and what they're saying. Some of the candidates are excellent, others have -well- let's say they've not communicated their qualities quite so well. The point of this stage is just to get a feel for the range of candidates.

Next, you need to break down the daunting task of ranking 20 candidates, by sorting them into a few groups of a few roughly equally qualified candidates.

Think about the experience and qualities required for the panel that you're voting on. Then construct a marking scheme for the candidates. It doesn't have to be rigorous: the point is to sort the candidates into a few categories, with just a few candidates in each. Go through each manifesto, and give it a score out of four or five.

I gave a point for having submitted a manifesto; a point for having clear relevant experience (like having worked abroad for the International Relations panel); a point for sitting members (to promote continuity); a point for mentioning policies that matter to me (for example, for abolishing the Lords in the Interim Peers Panel).

During this process, I found I made a few exceptions. For example, I downgraded a candidate who referred to himself as "one of our sharpest policy brains", and I gave Chris Wiggin my first place vote for the Interim Peers Panel because of his opposition to the Digital Economy Act.

Now, take the highest ranking group, and rank the individuals in the group. Since you've given them the top grade, and there are several places on the committee, it doesn't matter too much what the exact order is. However, you'll find that sorting a handful of candidates is much easier than trying to tackle the whole field at once. The important thing is that you don't miss any out at this point.

Once you've ranked the top group, move to the second group, and so on, until you're finished. Note that you don't have to give scores to everyone, but I found that there were some people who clearly hadn't given any impression that they were qualified (for example, some hadn't submitted a manifesto). Others said things that just irritated me. In order to rank them last, you have to rank the middle range, too!

10:10 - done!

Today is 10/10/10, and naturally the 10:10 campaign made a big deal of that. I pledged to meet the 10:10 objectives, and more importantly supported Lewes District Council's pledge.

I think I've met my commitment, and this is how I did it.

First, some cheap and easy stuff, that'll pay for itself quite quickly.

I was already buying my electricity from Ecotricity, because they invest more of their income in renewables than any other supplier. But, they have two tariffs. The very slightly more expensive tariff is "100% green", which means that they match every unit that they supply by buying a unit from a renewable supplier, like a wind farm. I upgraded to the 100% green tariff.

To work out how to cut down electricity usage, I borrowed an electricity monitor from Lewes Library, and spent a few hours working out where my electricity consumption was coming from. We already have compact flourescent lightbulbs (cfl) throughout the house, and thought we were doing quite well in general. But, we did find two ways to make significant savings:

We watch TV through a computer. Although the computer has low standby consumption, the monitor and other peripherals weren't so good. I invested in a "Standby Saver" power strip at £21, which switches those things off when the computer is switched off. We've also started shutting down rather than putting to sleep the computer. I think we'll save at least £50 per year in electricity.

We also discovered that our microwave oven uses about 50VA on standby, but only 3 Watts. That's because it has an abysmal power factor of about 4%. It's not costing us much, because we're charged for Watt hours, not VA hours. But, it is (I think) drawing power unnecessarily, that has to be generated, even at peak times. So, we've plugged it in to a separate, switched socket, and turn it off when we can.

However, it's space heating that accounts for about 60% of domestic energy use in the UK, so this is the most important place to look for savings; by insulation to prevent loss of heat, and by efficient supply of that heat. Our space heating is mains gas, which produces less CO2 than oil, and currently less than electricity. That'll change as we remove coal, oil and gas power stations in favour of renewables and nuclear. In the long term though, electric heat pumps will probably be the most effective way of heating existing homes, and passive solar gain the best way to heat new super-insulated housing.

Second, some mid-price stuff, with big savings. It'll also pay for itself quite quickly.

Insulation: our 1950s house was already double glazed throughout, when we bought it a few years ago. Not the best double glazing, but generally in good nick, and upgrading that would be very expensive. We were amazed to find out that it didn't have cavity wall insulation, and the loft insulation was minimal. So, we used an LDC grant to help get the cavity wall's insulated for a few hundred pounds. We also upgraded the loft insulation. These measures not only kept the house much warmer in winter, but also much cooler in summer. Gone were the long, sticky, sleepless nights!

It turned out that DIY was cheaper for the loft insulation, but tricky if we wanted to use the loft for storage. So, we added 8 inches of insulation above the main bedroom, but put boards over the spare bedroom. Now, with the 10:10 commitment, we wanted to upgrade the whole loft. We've now got decent insulation throughout, under a properly boarded floor. We also had plywood sheets put under the roof, to stop dust falling through the tiles. Finally, we had a proper loft ladder, and lights fitted. The consequence is that we not only have a properly insulated loft, but much more usable loft space, in which we can keep stuff that we need to access only occasionally. For example, its much more practical to keep luggage, winter coats during summer, spare bedding, and so on - all alongside the stuff that we only ever see when moving house!

Now, all that work in the loft was quite expensive, but the insulation itself would cost only a couple of hundred pounds, save at least £100 per year on heating costs, and cuts out the worst of winter cold, and summer heat.

Third, some more expensive stuff that should pay for itself over five to ten years. Maybe quicker if fuel prices keep rising as expected.

The most important thing is that we've replaced our boiler. It was installed in 1979, and was probably about 60% efficient. That is, it wasted 40% of the gas that it burned. Modern are typically about 90% efficient. They manage this by carefully controlling the gas/air mixture, and by recovering heat from their exhaust gases.

At the same time, we chose a combi boiler, which needs no hot water cylinder. As we use an electric shower, we tend only to use hot water from the boiler for washing up and hand washing. There's no point keeping a huge tank of water hot for that. This has given us a lot of new storage space in the old airing cupboard, and on top of that, we no longer need a water tank in the loft.

And, we've also got much better heating controls. Thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) throughout mean that no rooms become overheated. Programmable TRVs in the bedroom and living room mean we can focus heating on the bedroom in the morning, and the living room in the evening. We've also chosen a weather compensator, which measures the outside temperature, and allows the heating system to deliver the right amount of heat, at a steady rate to match the heat loss through the walls.

Finally, we picked an Ariston boiler which is compatible with solar hot water systems, and with underfloor heating (giving us a gradual route to heat pumps). Those are much more expensive systems, that we can't afford at the moment. Solar panels would have cost us much more, and saved much less energy. Heat pumps would also have cost more, and probably have saved no carbon emissions, given the current mix of the UK energy supply.

I don't drive, and we don't fly, so there's not much room for improvement there. My wife works as a rural community occupational therapist, but she's about to get a new car which should reduce her fuel consumption but at least 50%.

Now, we don't know the results yet, and they'll be somewhat weather dependent, but the new central heating system might be expected to reduce our domestic CO2 footprint by 20%. Add in the electricity savings, and we'll hope to do much better than the 10% commitment.