VAT on flights

Like the Devil I have recently spent a few days in Edimburgh, though purely as a spectator as a little break. To get their I flew from Exeter. The reason for flying was quite simple, by flying I actually got 5 days of holiday out of my 5 day holiday rather than 3 days of holiday plus 2 days traveling. The price of the ticket was identical to taking the train, to which you had to add the taxes which doubled it. Traveling has an external cost to the enviroment, which could be internalised through the tax system like the Tories seem to be proposing, so lets have a look at how much that should be.

Using the first link on Google I could have offset 2 long haul flights for the same tax as my hop to Edimburgh, even on their most expensive package. The cost that that particular company charges for a short haul flight like mine would be between £4.50 and £6.45, depending on how you wanted your offsetting performed, less than a tenth of the tax that I had paid. Using their handy calculator I would have produced 0.2 tonnes of CO2, so using the Stern review numbers of a cost of $85 per tonne I should be paying $17 or about £8.5. With this in mind I bought their middle package, not much of an outlay and actually still a bit of a saving when viewed over the long term. Given this data I feel that it is safe to say that the external costs of carbon had already been factored into my flight by the taxes that I was already paying.

This proposal also gets it wrong as a Pigou tax. Carbon is the externality so they should not be taxing value, they should be taxing carbon. Had I flown on a nuclear fission ram jet then the value would have been the same but the carbon released would have been zero, with the added advantage of making large areas of The North uninhabitable. While we do not really know, or have sufficiently developed markets to find out, what the true cost of carbon is using the Stern Review numbers comes out at significantly less than had VAT been used instead. Is it being a bit cynical to see this as the reason this proposal uses VAT rather than a carbon tax? Yes, but it also probably has an element of truth to it.

Good news for education (maybe)

Possible some good news for education. Eton and a number of other influential public schools could be about to dump A-Levels. That they could be going for an alternative set of qualifications is not the main point (there has been the International Baccalaureate for year as an example of another alternative academic qualification) it is that they are dumping A Levels in favour of a system designed by Cambridge University. That is better than the IB or A Level because since it is an exam to get into university which is set by the university themselves it eliminates the perverse incentives that have caused the grade inflation in A Levels. The incentives would be no longer to get as many people with as high grades as possible (by whatever means possible), but to give the universities an accurate idea of what the person is actually capable of to see if they want them or not.

At least 1 in 7 of the records in the enormous DNA database contains errors, but they really have absolutely no idea of how accurate the data is or not. The database is the largest in the world and the police want the power to be able to stuff it full of even more peoples details by being able to take and store samples of people for doing as little as being accused of dropping litter, then innocent or guilty once the data is in the database there is no way that it is being taken off again.

The police have also been given another new power today thanks to the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 which will let them ban people an area (which is very broadly defined) for 2 days. No trial (labour doesn't like trials), no evidence, just a policeman's say so.

Pegah Emambakhsh

This is at rather short notice but it only just came to my attention. With the bank holiday approaching I'm sure that many will be thinking of those lucky enough to be jetting off to sunnier climes, people such as Pegah Emambakhsh. She is scheduled to be heading off to iran on Monday. Where she will be murdered, slowly and brutally, in front of a screaming mob. What did she do to deserve this fate? Her 'crime' was to fall in love with the wrong person.

This is not the first time that the UK's authorities have somehow come to the conclusion that it is perfectly safe to throw people to the tender mercies of the Iranian state should they be gay, knowing full well that the Iranian state murders gays. The threat of judicial murder is enough that we cannot deport murderers, terrorists, and their supporters. Should there be a chance that they will be executed then these people have to be protected, a protection that magically evaporates for those who's only 'crime' is to fall in love with the wrong person.

The logic of our asylum system is upside down and back too front. It deports those genuinely fleeing persecution. It stops those seeking sanctuary here when they will be tortured to death (and these particular people have already given great help to our servicemen trying to do an impossible job). Yet at the same time it seems to bend over backwards to accommodate the hate filled Jihadis and their self proclaimed mission to destroy our way of life in order to replace it with barbarism like in Iran.

While unfortunately it is probably too late now there are ways to express your views on this:

Letters of support [quoting her Home Office reference number: B1191057] for Pegah Emambakhsh should be sent to:

Rt. Hon. Jacqui Smith MP
Home Secretary
2 Marsham St
London
SW1P 4DF

Because of the urgency and the holiday weekend, faxing the letter is suggested.

The fax number is: + 44 (0) 207 035 3262.

In either case the letter (envelope or fax) should be clearly marked for The personal attention of The Home Secretary

The Home Secretary’s email address is homesecretary.submissions@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

“So we can keep a record of what has been written please send a brief email to: pegahletters(at)mac.com to let the campaign group know who you have written to and by what form (letters, fax, email),” the Assist spokesperson requested.

I don't have a fax so I've emailed. As well as homesecretary.submissions@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk you can use smithjj@parliament.uk so I've sent to both, not that I expect it to do much good. I don't really expect it to even get through their filters since I've used the words 'justice', 'freedom' and the phrase 'civil liberties'. These are all concepts anathema to Labour.

UPDATE

At least somebody is willing to do the right thing, even if it isn't any of our politicians. Italy has offered her asylum.

goverment targets the children

We all know the perverse effects of government targets but how about this:

Record numbers of young children are being taken from their parents and adopted - sometimes unjustly - to meet government targets, it is claimed today.

Each year some 1,300 babies under a month old are placed in care before adoption, compared with 500 when the Government came to power, BBC Radio 4’s Face the Facts claims today.

Are we really to believe that people have become almost 3 times worse at brining up their children thanks to the influence of New Labour? As much as I hate the authoritarian cunts that stretches credulity to breaking point. Adoption is almost as good in outcomes as being with the birth parents, but if they aren't lucky enough to get adopted a life of state 'care' or fostering leads to a far far worse life that being with the birth parents.

The NHS sucks

The NHS has some of the worst cancer survival rates of anybody in Europe, the only country with comparable rates are the ex-communist countries in Eastern Europe who spend far less than the UK does. It also has the worst outcome for stroke victims in western Europe, despite spending as much or more than the rest of western Europe. It isn't the money, we spend at a rate comparable to other western states however the NHS transforms this into results that are comparable to the much poorer ex-communist states. The unique centralised and state controlled structures of the NHS have lead to uniquely bad outcomes, and it isn't going to improve until these structures are changed.

the drinking age

There has been a lot of fuss recently about the problem of violent drunken yobs and the fact that the police don't do anything about them. Can it be that this has only just come to some peoples attention? Crime has been getting worse continously since the end of World War 2 and the introduction of the Welfare State. The solution de jour is to increase the age at which people can purchase alcohol to 21. This solution is, of course, complete bollocks. The trouble comes from teenagers hanging around the streets and getting drunk and violent. Buying alcohol when you are less than 18 is already a crime. Getting drunk and disorderly is already a crime, and if I remember correctly so is stabbing people. By raising the age at which alcohol can be bought you will not criminalise any of the bad behaviour of these yobs, because their behaviour is already criminal. All that will be accomplished is that even more normally peaceful law abiding folk will have been turned into criminals.

The current 18 year limit is probably the most broken law in the country (something that would not change for the better by criminalising even more young drinkers), personally I do not know anybody that did not try drinking before they where 18. By being so universally flouted the drink age laws are amongst those laws that undermine the respect for the rest of it.

If under age drinking is going to continue, and we all know that it is, then a better solution would not to be to command the tide to retreat but to try and minimise its damage. This could be helped by having special centres where drinkers could go to imbibe and socialise away in a regulated way rather than on street corners. You could use regulation to make sure that those dispensing did not serve to those already drunk, and allow them expel trouble makers. They would naturally become social hubs so not being allowed in because of bad behaviour would be a major social stigma, and enough to keep most inline allowing them to learn to drink in a responsible fashion. Perhaps we could call these establishments 'Pubs'.

With the majority of the youth trying to get enough dutch courage to overcome the awkward inhibitions of socialising in these 'Pubs' there would only be the small hard core minority left, and separated from any that might be normally good but easily lead astray. So at the same time we could actually get the police to do their jobs. We could get them to try and prevent crime and disorder by getting out from behind their desks and patrolling then arresting the violent minority under the multitude of laws that we already have against violence. In order to do this we might have to reduce the amount of paperwork and so some of the paper shuffling bureaucracy might end up loosing their over paid non-jobs. However given the problem at hand this is a price we are just going to have to pay.

The euro, how long will it survive?

Was the Euro a good idea? Based on the data so far, no it wasn't. The Eurozone is not looking like an optimal currency area, just as EUsceptics said it would not. It might still be able to survive, but only if there is enough political will among the members states in order to bear the pain. This is unlikely, they have no reason to take the blame for trouble that is not theirs when all the perks of office could be at stake. The Euro probably won't survive long term, and when that goes so will the EU.

Scottish Independence

just back from Edinburgh and having completely cut myself off from my normal news sources just about the only story that I picked up on was the White Paper on Scottish Independence. I've got to say that I think that First Minister Alex Salmond has played a very smart political game over this one.

First he seeks to limit his poll to Scotland only, he can justify this with several reasons such as: his powers do not extend south of the border (which would emphasis how much power over scotland is currently outside of scotland, strengthening the emotional appeal of his course at the same time) or by claiming that it is about Scottish self determination (again emphasizing the difference of Scotland and strengthening the emotional appeal of his course at the same time). This gives him a home turf advantage.

The timing will make it in 2009, which so long as Gordon Brown does not call an early election next year to get the most out of the thank-god-Tony's-gone-bounce could well lead to a significant shift to the Tories. This would be a very real demonstration of the the very different polities north and south of the border, and could well lead to greater support for more independence for scotland because of a collective mood of 'if they want the Tories we don't want them.'

Finally there are the questions that where chosen questions:
• Retaining the present devolved set-up.
• Redesigning devolution by extending the powers of the Scottish Parliament in specific areas.
• Full independence.
Everybody will be arguing over full independence leaving the middle option (and probably his preferred option) of more powers looking like a reasonable compromise, and one that already has a lot of support.

As somebody that prefers small states with their powers devolved as close to the people as possible (preferably to the people themselves as often as possible) I have no worries about scottish independence and welcome further devolution. I only hope that should the SNP get their referendum and through it get a mandate for further powers that this time somebody will think to try and answer the West Lothian question at the same time. For us south of the border this could well be useful as well. By campaigning against the referendum on scottish independence and the referendum on the not-the-constitution treaty Gordon is going to be looking rather un-democratic. Despite the protection offered by his honeymoon period already there have been signs of how un-democartic and un-collegic his thinking is (the U-turn on the casinos without telling anybody about it for example) despite the spin.

Climate change, a suggestion

The climate has been changing continuously for as long as this ball of rock has had enough gravity to hold onto gasses in order that there be a climate. It has always and will always be in flux. Currently it is changing in ways that I fear will be detrimental to human life and I sincerely hope it is principally because of human action. This is because if humans started it then humans can stop it. I've been thinking about what can be done about climate change after an interesting discussion with Bruno of Picking Losers sparked on by my post about the Heathrow protesters. In this monster post here is my idea for trying to deal with climate change, it requires just three things.

1. A tax


2. A tax credit


3. A market

the story so far

Aside from the neo-communist ludites that want everybody throw away our technology, then crawl back into the caves and inbreed there have been three main alternatives proposed for dealing with climate change.

1. Grow out of trouble


2. Carbon offsetting


3. Cap and trade carbon credits

One idea for trying to deal with climate change has been simply to let the economy grow its way out of trouble. Normally this would be the best approach because we know that a properly constructed market left to its own devices can find the optimum level of anything. The problem is that climate change is not accurately taken into account by the current markets, it is an externality done by us that will have to be paid for by them (people in the future, mainly in the poorer areas such as Africa). Certainly growing the economy will have good effects for the environment by letting technology improve and become more efficient. We can trade so what people want can be produced with using the least resources, plus let people become richer and so able to afford a luxury like a more environmentally friendly lifestyle.

Carbon offsetting

Being environmentally friendly is a luxury. Only after they have got the basics of not ending up dead and being able to bring up there children safely do people ever think about the more abstract things like the environment that will not immediately affect them. As people become richer they can indulge their whims on luxury goods, with one of this seasons must have accessories for the uber-rich being a fist full of carbon offsets.

With carbon offsetting you are paying a company to try and reduce atmospheric CO2 levels for you now in order to reduce the level of climate change in years to come. The current schemes are far from perfect, because the consumers simply don't care enough. They are buying a better environment for somebody else in the future that you will never meet, not a recipe for intense engagement in what they are buying. There maybe a few that do this for purely altruistic reasons, but what most are really buying is a smug holier than thou feeling. There being not many people that have so much money the only thing left to buy is a justification for feeling smug, so unfortunately until we can get an incentive that will appeal to more people than smugness carbon offsetting is not going to take place on a large enough scale to be useful.

Cap and trade carbon credits

Carbon trading was a good idea, but one that failed because of the way that it was implemented. Each member state was supposed to issue only as many credits as where absolutely needed. Unfortunately everybody (except the UK) put in a figure much higher than was needed, in order to try and get an industrial subsidy off of their neighbors on the sly. The supply of credits outstripped demand and so the price fell and the price of EU carbon credits became more a measure of the level that the various members states thought they could con the system than the amount that carbon costs.

Currently EU carbon credits are used as part of the cap and trade system. In order to set the cap part of this scheme means that the state must decide how much carbon that it will allow to be released. Given that the state has been proven so bad at planning the needs of people for every other resource that it has ever tried there is no reason to think that it would do any better with carbon emissions. The current EU cap and trade system is effectively a carbon tax with an industrial subsidy (not really a surprise that there is some kind of subsidy in there, being an EU scheme). The world has no need for corporate welfare so why not just have the pigouvian carbon tax without the subsidies?

a tax

Part one of my proposal is a pigouvian tax on Carbon emissions. This should be fairly simple to implement as we already almost have one in the form of fuel duty. All that needs doing is extending it to all fossil fuels no matter where they are to be used with no exemptions (political manipulation for special exemptions being the bane of any tax of this type). Then set it at the correct level to internalise the externality of the carbon it represents.

If you have already paid for your carbon emissions via a tax why would you want to pay for them again through credits? Or conversely if you had paid for them via credits why should you pay a tax as well? You shouldn't. By offsetting you effectively do not release carbon so you should not be taxed on releasing carbon.

a tax credit

Part two of what I propose is that by buying my carbon credits you are buying tax credits of the value of the pigou tax on that amount of carbon. Whether via the pigou tax or by offsetting their emissions it is up to the producers of emissions to take responsibility for their emissions. This leaves the market to discover how much carbon it is best to release given all the information that it is able to aggregate. As opposed to some bureaucratic whim based on limited information, political biases, and political gaming that has so comprehensively wreaked the EU carbon cap and trade scheme.

a market

Part three of my idea is that you don't have governments generate carbon credits by fiat and distribute them as they see fit (as happened in the failed EU system). Allow carbon offsetting companies to make them by taking carbon out of the atmosphere and sell them for however much the market will bear. This creates a link between the market price of carbon and what it actually costs to stop carbon reaching the atmosphere.

The only thing left to do is set the level of the tax on carbon emissions. To act as a Pigou tax and internalise the externalities of carbon emissions this tax should be set at the level that these externalities actually cost. Luckily we have just set up a market which should accurately discover the cost of removing carbon from the air, which seems like a good way of finding this cost.

incentives matter

Part four therefore is to use the average price of carbon credits for sale as the level of the tax on carbon. The treasury already monitors the prices of many different products in order to measure inflation, so adding carbon credits to the list should not prove to great a bureaucratic burden. This would have some interesting effects:

• It would stop any chancellor escalating the carbon tax in order to increase his revenues. As soon as he moved it above the price of the carbon market by buying credits and using them against your tax you would start to make a nominal profit directly reducing tax revenues.


• You would not even have to wait for this kind of manipulation in order to start making money, by investing in credits from any scheme that is cheaper than the market average stands to make money.

This ability to make money by investing in the most efficient schemes is the most important feature of my idea because suddenly there is a much stronger incentive to try and get CO2 out of the atmosphere than ever before. An incentive so strong that it would work against even the most hardened climate change sceptic. Cold, hard, cash.

Instead of being good to the environment simply being yet another regulatory cost or as something that you give to other people in order to show how 'right on' you are it becomes something that you can actually make you wealthy. Instead of being shunted away to be dealt with with the minimal thought it becomes something that great thought will be taken over because any increase in efficiency to get below the average market rate would lead to a profit (which would in time increase the number of similar schemes and so reduce the average market rate towards that level). Instead of trying to abolish capitalism you harness all of its staggering power, a power that can (and in many ways already has) change the world for the better.

a good fair fight

It this point, if not before, somebody is going to say that this is effectively a license to print money. What guarantees are there that the offsetting companies won't simply dump credits onto the market that they have not themselves earned through programmes to take carbon out of the atmosphere. This could be a problem, but really it is one that is easily solvable. Currently all companies have to present true and accurate accounts as to how much money they have. In order to prove that these accounts are true and accurate they already have to be prepared to have their books audited. Simply require that any credit only be honoured if the company that originally issued it be able to produce if required an external audit that their operations do what they say they do. Any offsetting company that is not scrupulously clean would find itself cut off from the market because the people buying the credits would not want to take the risk that they would not be honoured and hence any potential profit instantly turned to a substantial loss.

conclusion

In some ways this idea is rather like Cap and Trade, it boils down to being a carbon tax and a form of subsidy. Unlike cap and trade however the subsidy does not go to the polluting industries, but is directed at companies trying to undo the pollution. There is also the difference that the value of the tax is not set by bureaucratic whim but by a large, vigorous and competitive market the profits from which act are the subsidy. In fact the closer the tax gets to perfection for internalising the externality caused by the release of carbon the lower the subsidy to firms trying to remove carbon from the atmosphere becomes. Just as there is a feedback mechanism between the market and the tax to try and discover the correct level for the tax to be set at, there is a feedback mechanism between the tax and the market so that imperfections in the market get cleaned up by causing an effective subsidy for carbon offsetting companies. The end result could be a dynamic self regulating system where each part compensates for potential imperfections in the other parts automatically.

Iraq interpreters

Tim Ireland has put together a short video to go publicise the fate of the interpreters that we are about to leave behind in Iraq. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the Iraq war (and personally I've changed my mind about it, twice) these people deserve our gratitude for the help they have given our soldiers. They have already put themselves in danger for the UK, which is a lot more than can be said of many people that have sort sanctuary here.



There is a petition going for Gordon Brown to ignore and since it is only at about 750 at the moment there must be many people out there that have yet to sign it, so should a reader turn up to this blog and not have done so please think about signing it.

Over on planet Guardian, where they are all Hezbollah now, Neil "I love genocidaires" Clark has a different view. He thinks that all of these interpreters are eeeeevil collaborators and as such it is only right that they be tortured to death. A view that should make some of the other people that write for the Groan rather uncomfortable. Not for sharing pages with such a freedom hating, genocide apologist, conspiracy monger of a cunt. They should all be used to that. If he Clark truly believed that quislings should be murdered then many of them could be up for getting the power tool treatment.

Second day of intervention

Another day, another 61.05 billion euros. Something is definitely going on.

The ECB, the US Federal reserve, the Canadian central bank, the Japanese central bank and the Austrialian central bank are all putting in liquidity. Central banks in the Philippines, Indonesia and South Korea said they are ready to provide more cash if required.

UPDATE

Via samizdata comes the reason for why there was this sudden urge to lend to people that where before deemed too risky.

Politicians have also been a key factor behind pushing lenders to lend to borrowers with lower prospects of being able to repay their loans.

The Community Reinvestment Act lets politicians pressure lenders to make loans to people they might not lend to otherwise - and the same politicians are quick to cry "exploitation" when the interest charged to high-risk borrowers reflects that risk.

The huge losses of subprime lenders, some of whom have gone bankrupt, demonstrate again the consequences of letting politicians try to micro-manage the economy.

problems in the Eurozone

The problems in the US subprime mortgage market have really crossed the Atlantic. First was the German bank IKB, which the German government was forced to offer a 1bn Euro lifeline, which they might have to give back because they could be classed as illegal state aid, and now it is the French bank BNP Paribas

French bank BNP Paribas suspended three investment funds worth 2bn euros (£1.35bn), citing problems in the US sub-prime mortgage sector

This has caused a serious problem in the Eurozone markets forcing the ECB to intervene. To me a 95bn Euro bail out is a bit more than a fine tuning operation no matter what the ECB may say, this is an intervention on that scale had not been seen since the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York in 2001 and is the largest single action that the ECB has ever mounted according to the Telegraph. I'm neither an economist nor a financial expert but when you get interventions on a scale comparable to that clearly something major is up and it won't be pretty.

EU wants to censor the internet

Spyblog has some coverage of the EU's plans to censor the internet. In order to cover their backs the Commission sent out a vague questionnaire to various groups, Spyblog decided to go though it as well and what they seem to be proposing is very frightening, as it would become a crime to say anything that might indirectly incite other people to terrorism.

There are no conceivable situations where indirect incitement should be criminalised at all. The European Commission should not only ensure that they do not bring forward any such legislation, they should actively make legal provisions to force Member States to repeal any such legacy legislation which has infected their legal systems over the years.

The whole concept of "indirect guilt", or "guilt by racial or religious stereotype", or "guilt by indirect association", or "being your brother's keeper", or "betraying members of your own family to the authorities on suspicion not evidence" etc. etc. should be viewed as an anathema to the principles in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

It would be up to the ISPs to police this, destroying their current status as common carriers, like the post office, and it would only affect public sites not private password protected sites that you would expect your average Islamic terrorist to use when discussing their plans to bring distruction to the infidel masses. The only thing this proposed law could do is stifle free speech, closing down free speech because the ISPs would have to try and shut out anything that could have the possibility of even indirectly inciting terrorism.

Inspiring tale

As the news is normally filled with all manner of doom here is a rather inspiring tale via Liberal England. A man with no formal education was so determined to try and provide his children with a better start than he had was willing to travel to another country, this one, and work by trading in order to get money to send home to pay for his children's education. His only mistake was that the commodity that he chose to trade, canabis, happens to be illegal thanks to our stupid drug laws.

100% Crank

If it is only cranks that believe in Liberty, as Roy Hattersley says, then this blog is 100% crank.

you are being followed

Not content with their plans for just tracking and recording everybody's movements by car Labour wants even more details on your movements having just given themselves the power to get access to mobile phone location data, itemised telephone bills, subscriber details so they can track you outside of your car as well. Liking Parliament almost as little as they like civil liberties the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 was used to get this in as secondary legislation.

Carbon trade, everybody wins

The government has been critised for their approach to climate change. For once I am not going to critise the government, because this time it appears that it is the committee that requires a beating with the cluestick.

The committee expressed "surprise" that the government intended to buy foreign carbon credits to meet 70% of its emission savings under the EU emissions trading scheme.

It says there should be an "absolute cap" on their use, saying: "The bill as currently drafted would still theoretically allow all the savings to be made externally to the UK, notably in developing countries, and thereby postponing the decarbonisation of the UK economy."

Errm, that is the point. The reason for the cardon trading scheme was to create the greatest benefit for people in future at the lowest cost to people now, by reducing carbon production where it was cheapest to do so. Enviromentalism should be about trying to do the best for people, not just an excuse for bansturbation by the political elites.

If it costs somebody £100 to reduce their carbon output by 1 ton and somebody else £70 to reduce their carbon output by 1 ton then by letting the first person pay the second person, say, £85 to reduce their output an extra ton so that they don't have to. In this example person 1 has saved £15, person 2 has made £15 and people in future still have the effects of climate change reduced by two tons of carbon, at $85 a ton according to the Stern Review. This means that between them all the world is better off by £30 (£85*2 - £70*2). If this trade had not been allowed the world would be no better off after the reductions in carbon than before (£85*2 - £100 - £70) so we might as well not have bothered.

the database state creeps onward

The police want to be able to demand DNA on the streets for non-arrestable offenses, not that there are many of those left, putting yet more non-criminals onto their database. Later found to be completely innocent? Tough, all your DNA is belong to them as the saying goes. Not just DNA, photographs, fingerprints, even footwear impressions for such heinous crimes as littering.

What could the police be doing while measuring your inside leg for their records? Well it probably wouldn't be catching thieves, merely damaging somebody's livelihood potentially driving them out of business and resulting in the people they employ being out of work isn't as bad a crime as littering.

MTAS - 100% fuck up

The new system for recruiting junior doctors is a disaster. Why is anybody surprised? This is a centralised system designed by the central bureaucracy and for the central bureaucracy in order to make it easier for them. As DK eloquently points out of the central bureaucracy:

they are a gaggle of lying, incompetent cockmonkeys who aren't capable of lacing their own shoes without getting lost in pointless deception and trying to charge you for the privilege.

There is no clinical need for a centralised system for giving each hospital its ration of junior doctors. There is no clinical need for everybody to start at the same time. It is the hospitals that know what staff they need and the junior doctors more senior colleagues that know when they have learn a sufficient amount to progress with their training.

Let the senior doctors overseeing the juniors training decide when they can move on, and let the hospitals set their own recruitment systems to fill their recruitment needs as and when they arise. If a group of hospitals think their needs are similar enough to decide to create a standardised system in order to reduce their recruitment costs then great, if they decide that an IT bases system is the one for them then that is what they should use (but hopefully it would be a system that has some kind of security to it).