The Benefits of Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment, along with Health and Safety, is one of the dæmons modern life pursued by the tabloid and right-wing press. This often involves concocting a story, which may have no basis in fact, about men in grey suits banning playground toys, village fetes and anything else which makes it seem that the “British Way Of Life” is under threat.

While it is true that risk assessment can occasionally be taken too far at times, it is of inherent benefit to us. I’d like to illustrate this by using an example I was discussing earlier today. Specifically, an accident which may well have been preventable if risk assessment had been undertaken.

Image from Soviet Archives, Used under Fair Use terms

The above picture shows the remains of Chernobyl Reactor No. 4. It was taken in the weeks after the disaster, prior to construction of the containment sarcophagus.

One of the causes of the Chernobyl disaster was lack of risk assessment, with the dated reactor design simply deemed ’safe’ by the Soviet powers that be on the basis that none of it’s predecessors had had problems. Unlike the UK, there was no regulators to ensure that any kind of real safety assessment was undertaken.

It is impossible to categorically state that such a disaster would never have occurred if risk assessment has been undertaken, but it is likely that a number of flawed practises would have been identified and eliminated. These include carrying out extended experimental procedures across shift changes, the absence of nuclear technicians as well as a number of technical issues in the design of the reactor itself. It is likely that, had risk assessment been carried out, building a city around the reactor complex would have been deemed too dangerous – as it is in the majority of nuclear states – which would have saved many hundreds of lives.

A slightly more recent example concerns a current design of reactor. The Westinghouse AP-1000 reactor, one of two proposed designs for the next generation of British nuclear power, is currently being redesigned to eliminate potential risks identified as a result of risk assessment.

Of course, risk assessment can’t eliminate every single potential problem. Nothing in life (especially nuclear power plants) will ever be 100% safe but as long as it’s carried out sensibly it is of great benefit and does save lives. Since the 1990s, there has been increasing risk assessment with fatal accidents at work declining by half.

Between fewer fatalities and slightly safer nuclear power station, I’m happy to give my support to the much lambasted and overlooked practise of risk assessment.

On Steven Purcell

Steven Purcell is not a man who I have very much time for. This is no reflection on him personally, it’s simply a reflection of the abysmal and arrogant manner in which the city was run during the time I lived there and when he was leader of the council.

It’s one of the reasons I decided not to comment when he suddenly announced his resignation more then a week ago. The other was that the reasons cited sounded rather euphemistic – in the same vein as ’spending time with his family’ – but I wasn’t going to let my own bias against Mr Purcell and his council needlessly colour positive comment of the day, not least because damming someone who is potentially suffering from mental illness is far from the decent thing to and I would much rather see him make a recovery.

Now, of course, a number of revelations have come out about Mr Purcell. The main two being that during part of the time he was leader of Glasgow City Council, Mr Purcell had a dependancy on a Class A drug and was warned by Strathclyde Police about interactions with gangsters and potential blackmail. I imagine that life cannot have been particularly pleasant for Mr Purcell during this time, with comments from “a friend” in the Sunday Times painting a picture of a frightened and paranoid man rather then the Bright Young Thing of Scottish Labour.

It would be easy to make political capital out of all of this, but I’m not entirely sure that would be in good taste. I also don’t think that Purcell’s actions will have wider repercussions for Scottish Labour – after all, the Labour vote in Glasgow is very firmly embedded, despite previous scandals involving gangland figures and corruption.

What I am going to say is that I’m left extremely disappointed and angry by Purcell’s actions. Scotland has a poor international reputation in many ways – a history of high murder rates, high violent crime rates, poor diet and massive use of drugs has left a legacy which is largely borne by Glasgow City and the West Coast. As the bright young thing in charge of Scotland’s largest local authority, Purcell should have been helping to stamp out this reputation – moving the city as a whole away from it’s “No Mean City” reputation towards the council’s “Scotland With Style” tagline. Instead he’s fulfilled a stereotype , damaging the city  and allowing the media to smirk about those violent, drug-taking Glaswegians and Scots.

True, Mr Purcell did help to win the bid for the 2014 Commonwealth Games, but I wonder how much better that money could be spent providing public services and improving housing in the city rather then being handed to Rangers and Celtic for the use of their stadia. Hopefully there will be some wide spread regeneration as a result of this, but with budgets likely to become ever tighter as 2014 approaches, it seems likely that people of Glasgow are going to suffer for the sport.

I doubt there will be any long term changes in Glasgow politics as a result of this affair, but I am likely being overly cynical. At least the City Council in Glasgow is no longer a one party system, so while the majority is still held by Labour, it is at least held accountable by the other parties within the city. Hopefully, in time, this will lead to a more open, more transparent local authority rather then the Labour boy’s club which recent events have highlighted.

Sunday Posts

I have family from all over Scotland and I’ve lived in a good few parts of it. Consequently, I find it quite hard to identify with any one bit of it – I’m not an Islander, I’m not an Aberdeenshire loon, I’m not a Glaswegian, I’m not an Edinburger and I’m not Aberdonian. I’m just Scottish. Tellingly, my accent is closer to what might be called BBC Scottish then anything you are likely to hear from a native of any of those areas.

Why is this relevant to a blog about politics? Well, I have a good deal of respect for some of the traditions from the areas I come from, and Lewis’ traditional Sabbath is one of the most relaxing experiences I’ve encountered (despite being a-religious). In that tradition, I’d like to take Sundays out of the political melee so I can ponder the latest wisdom from the Observer and the Sunday Herald (former for international news and recipies, latter for Scottish news and commentary) without feeling the need to be enraged on the internet. After all, as the on-going affair regarding Steven Purcell shows, it pays to wait and see how affairs pan out.

However, I am trying to blog seven days a week, in some way, shape or form, although not necessarily about a news story on the day on which a it breaks. So what do I do?

Well, I’m going to reserve Sundays for two things:-

1) Reviews and pop culture posts (such as my Top Five Fictional Politicians post).

2) Posts specifically about why I hold the opinions I do.

This latter is both arrogant and presumptuous, but given my rather public and grudging support for Lib Dem policies, prior support for the SSP and open support for the Greens, I feel the need to explain my opinions. Not least amongst these is why exactly I support the SNP and have done for far longer then I could vote for. I hope it will help people understand my views and where exactly I come from on the political spectrum.

The first such entry will be on Sunday 14th of March. In the meantime, my blogging will likely remain sporadic until April, at which point I have significantly more free time with which to blog.

Raging Against The Westminster Machine

The Westminster Machine has long been a figure within SNP campaigns, and going on Alex Salmond’s speech today, it looks like we’ll be raging against it this year. Maybe not the best slogan to launch a campaign on given Rage Against The Machine’s foul-mouthed, hard left (although generally extremely good) material, but the SNP have about as much claim to it as Labour do in this day and age. Still, it does work for the party – after all, the SNP played a big part in the initial efforts to get expenses released under Freedom of Information and in the attempt to impeach Tony Blair while being one of the few groups in Parliament to voice opinion against the war in Iraq. No doubt we’ll be hearing more about those as the election goes on.

The meat of the campaign sounds like it could be quite convincing for those outside the party. Following on from previous campaigns focused on “Scotland’s Voice”, the emphasis this year is on Local Champions representing the people. Given the tendency amongst Labour and the Tories to parachute in candidates from outside local areas and anointing the favoured candidates, it could resonate well with a Scotland which is dissatisfied with the way in which politics has been working at Westminster.

The Local Champions theme also looks at returning a voice to the people in a constituency. Having never lived in a constituency with an SNP MP, I can’t comment directly on how much interaction there is between SNP parliamentarians and their constituents, but a number of SNP MSPs do go out of their way to keep in touch with constituents. As I wrote recently, I believe that MPs should be doing more to represent their constituents, not blindly following the party whip. I believe the SNP, which is a broad kirk, is in a position to do this, although I suspect that many hardened voters will fail to look past party lines.

The remainder of the speech deals mostly with economic issues and the idea of “More Nats, Less Cuts”. This is a great way to campaign about Scotland specifically without using issues which are explicitly the preserve of Holyrood, because no matter who becomes First Minister in 2011, they are going to be facing the worst cuts Scotland has seen in generations, possibly coupled with a second, worse recession. The proposed Tory ‘Age of Austerity’ could well see the UK end up in a similar position to Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. It’s the job of the SNP (and all of the Scottish parties) to ensure that doesn’t happen and that we rebuild the economy on a solid foundation before we deal with the deficit, or if not that, at least remind George Osbourne and Alastair Darling to have a glance over the works of J. M. Keynes.

This is an excellent start to the SNP’s election campaign. With Labour and Tory efforts already flagging in Scotland, it shouldn’t be hard to gain the momentum and keep it going until May 6th. Keeping the Rage Against the Machine theme going, 2010 is the year when we’re going to be taking the power back.

On the Death of Michael Foot

Michael Foot was one of the last true socialist figures of the Labour Party.

Recent interviews with him demonstrate that he never lost the fire he displayed as Labour leader and that he retained a sharp sense of humour and a great political mind right to the end.

A great loss to the socialist tradition in Britain and to politics as whole.

I feel confident in saying, had I been of voting age in 1983, Foot would have gotten my vote.