honestlyreal

One of the most fascinating angles to emerge from the LA Fitness story is the differing perceptions people have of the value of goods and services.

Specifically, much of the public support for the contract holder undergoing hardship seems to be built on the premise that “they haven’t used the service yet; why shouldn’t they be able to walk away without penalty?”

It’s an interesting point. If they’d stopped making repayments for a car, there is a clear link to a tangible asset that they’d have to give back. Similarly with a mortgage and a property.

If you stop a handset-included mobile phone contract early, you can argue that you’re not consuming any more services, but you have of course got the benefit of the handset in your hand (the costs of which have been met by some of the projected revenue take over the life of your contract).

And what about a loan? The recipient has had the benefit: the lump of cash up front–would a massive interest burden in some way justify their cessation of repayment? It gets harder in this case, maybe because the defensible “asset” becomes less tangible?

And the point which I think was largely glossed over with LA Fitness was that although the customer might not be consuming any more of the service (which in any case seems to be common with many gym memberships) this forms part of an overall price/usage/investment/repayment model on which the business is founded.

If contract providers face a greater risk of early termination without penalty then they will adjust their model by raising prices to account for that greater risk. We know that 24 month contracts are cheaper than 12 month ones: it’s not as if we can really make an assumption of consumer naivety on that general principle any more.

And the “projected value of the contract” is just as real as a physical asset in other ways: for example to the sales rep whose commission is pegged to ongoing “good” business. Try telling them that early termination without penalty is an action without effect.

Similarly, to accountants and investors, a stream of known future revenue is as real an asset as a car in a showroom. That’s how businesses work.

None of which means that discretion can’t and shouldn’t have been exercised in this case. The company’s initial refusal to recognise the impact that their blunt decision would have (perhaps magnified by the “not a real consumer service” points above) was foolish, and eventually they had no choice but to cave in.

They would have had all sorts of discretionary powers: in case of contract holder death or disappearance, for example, and should have used them.

But I am left with the question: would we be as consistent with support for a hardship case where other services (or even goods) were involved? And is this rational?

Or was a collective folk-feeling of frustration–with all those thousands of gym memberships that are paid for and never used–in some way acting as an accelerant for this fire?

What is it that really makes you sign a petition?

I’ve given a lot of thought to this question today. Triggered by one particular petition that has seen an 11th hour surge of promotion through social networks. And I can’t help concluding that the nature of “deadlines” and “targets” does itself modify behaviour in these circumstances.

There’s a big difference between the phrasing: “sign this petition, it’s an incredibly good cause and by far the most appropriate way to address it”

and

“Person X has worked really hard to get this important issue heard. It’s only Y thousand signatures from success, with Z minutes to go.”

especially when you can get real-time updates of how Y and Z are racing each other to the wire. It’s a bit addictive like that, all this instant feedback.

NB. I am intentionally not referencing that precise petition here. To do so will take the argument into different territory than I am addressing: which is about mechanics and behaviours of mass, public, direct representation. You can obviously search it out if you choose, but I will give short shrift to comments that focus on it specifically.

So what is it that persuades someone to add their name to a petition? I can see a massive range of factors. It could be because: they believe it will make a difference, they’re angry, someone has asked them to, someone has told them to, everyone else is doing it, or maybe that they just want to see it “be a winner”. There are no absolute “good” and “bad” reasons. This is just how things are. That’s the nature of mass participation.

But it’s that last one that’s playing on my mind. The combination of target and deadline changes the dynamic. We start seeing “edge effects” at work. I’d say that something achieving 90% of its goal with 24 hours to spare can much more easily attract attention that something at 50% with three months to go. We like “the cause of the day”. (Indeed Twitter in particular now seems to be one long stream of them.)

And if that is true, then that target effectively shrinks slightly, as a result of this last-minute acceleration effect.

Is that a good thing? Has it been fully accounted for in the design of the system? What would happen if the “score” were kept masked (other than to say it exceeded a minimum threshold for consideration)? I’d be really interested to know.

Doing a bit of writing. Couldn’t remember whether tax payer was one word or two. Didn’t want to bother @danosirra. Googling gave mixed results. And it wasn’t in the ever-reliable Guardian Style guide.

So I dropped them a note:

From: p@ulclarke.com
To: style.guide@guardian.co.uk
cc:
Subject: Tax payer or taxpayer

Message:
————————————————————————–

would be a good one to add. I see wide variation, notably between BBC and Guardian

and there’s the TaxPayers’ [sic] Alliance…

—
Paul Clarke

…to which came the frankly epic reply:

From: style.guide@guardian.co.uk
To: p@ulclarke.com
Subject: Re: Tax payer or taxpayer

Message:
————————————————————————–

Thank you for your email.

Good suggestion. I will add them to the guide.

Our style is taxpayer (one word). As for the TaxPayers’ Alliance, I see they claim to be “non-partisan”, which is about as convincing as their spelling.

Best wishes,

Gotta love that. You can even show your love by buying their book.

It started with this pre-Christmas story. [Minister says we should strongly oppose discrimination against teenagers. Particularly when it’s done using those mosquito device thingys.]

Mosquitos? Those ultra-high-pitched teenager-deterring screeching devices that provoked all that press attention a few years back? Are they still around?

Something about this story just wasn’t working for me. Was it that it smacked of grandstanding to win popularity amongst younger voters?

Or was it just that everything had gone so quiet about these devices that their sudden reappearance in a government policy speech could only mean that new cloth was being woven from old threads?

Was the Minister posing for photos, blowing the smoke from his shotgun, over a corpse that had died years ago?

I read the policy paper itself (yeah, dull old me, actually reading the underlying material). The only mention it makes of mosquito devices is to various successful campaigns for their removal.

Hmmm. Big hmmm.

So I asked about a bit: did anyone I know have any evidence of real, live mosquito use anywhere near them?

I got back a few comments like “well, I think there’s one outside a shop near me” but nobody could actually say they were sure one was being used.

Googling didn’t enlighten me much further. The suppliers of these devices seemed keen to trumpet their virtues, of course. [Here a Mr Gordon White of Plymouth City Council praises the reduction in vandalism they’ve seen since fitting them. When? Hmmm.]

So I looked a little harder at Plymouth. There was a lot of debate a while back–most of it either parroting Mr White’s claims, or concerning attempts to ban use of the things by the Council.

Yet more grandstanding, it would seem. On the one hand, hardliners trying to show residents how tough they can be on the causes of vandalism. On the other, more liberal voices courting teenage popularity by banning them.

But are they being used now? As Tim Loughton flings them around as so much salt and pepper on his speech?

A job for FOI…

Using the wonderful What Do They Know, I have a swift answer.

No. And the one they did have hadn’t been activated since 2008.

If you do have any evidence of real use, I’d be very interested to hear it. Not of previous installations, or claimed installations, or of a box on the wall that’s become part of local lore. Real evidence that they are switched on regularly, teenagers dispersed, and all that.

I mean, the Minister wouldn’t just use flimsy scare stories to brighten up a headline, now would he?

—–

Afterpiece: Jon Baines has dug out this interesting legal briefing to Tim Loughton on mosquitos.

Great word, isn’t it? And so many of them around, too. I mean, we all know one or two ourselves, don’t we? Don’t we?

So, where to start with all this stuff…Mr Byrne and Mr Miliband seem but the latest to come out swinging at all these parasites.

Problem is, like almost everyone else, the rhetoric and the thinking are all pointing the wrong way.

To see it another way, think of a few different…lines.

Imagine a line of people with the most ardent hardliner on “scrounger culture” at one end of it. He (just a wild guess, but it’s probably a he) will maintain that if you can’t support yourself, and have no family or handy charity who’ll help you out, then you shouldn’t exist. Harsh, but life is harsh…etc. etc. Under no circumstance should the state try to do so, given it will be funded by compulsory subscription from everyone else. It’s not their problem, is it?

At the other end of the same line is the biggest bleeding heart do-gooder you could possible think of. Great at writing cheques on other people’s bank accounts, especially if their money is channelled by a faceless intermediary in the shape of a paternalistic state. Who cares about a few “false positives” in terms of the needy being supported? Better that ten doubtful cases are helped than that one genuine person starves.

These are caricatures, of course. But we’re all on that line somewhere. Even if we’re not exactly sure where. Or change position over time, or according to the individual case we’re looking at. We’re all on it. The line of the judgers.

Imagine a second line, the line of the judged. This one has the genuine case at one end, and the complete liar at the other. We know the two extremes when we see them, of course. Because they’re extremes. And many of us think, from a distance, that we have a pretty good idea of where on the line we can draw that “magic” point: to one side, you’re deserving, to the other, you’re a scrounger.

A few problems creep in immediately: where you draw it can be based as much upon where you stand on the line of the judgers as where they stand on the line of the judged. And can you be a judger and judged at the same time? (Erm, yes.) Are you really judging circumstance, or character? Plight, or background? (I still wince when I remember that phrase from the old advertisements: “distressed gentlefolk”…)

But the real problem is that these lines aren’t lines in any geometric sense. The nice purity of division and classification falls apart like a cheap suit under any sort of scrutiny.

Think of the coastline. Yes, another line. Isn’t it? It’s obvious where it lies. One side land, the other sea. Now look more closely. Still sure about that? Still confident that you can draw, with perfect accuracy, a boundary between the two? One that doesn’t shift faster than you can study it? One in which every crevice, nook, cell and grain can be defined as being on one side or the other?

Of course you can’t. The coastline is a great theory, but a poor reality. It only exists at a distance, rather like our dividing line of the deserving from the undeserving.

No, like the coastline, both the judgers and the judged are fractals: the closer you look, the more complexity you see. And it seems to me that the national debate here totally overlooks what’s really at issue: these questions of judgement. It’s just infantile to keep on throwing around vague concepts like “a horde of scroungers”–because we find, time and time again, that when you look at the individual cases there are no easy judgements–if indeed you can be confident of a sound judgement at all.

Nobody at all, really, wants to reward the feckless. Or cause the needy to suffer, given that overall, we have resources to help them.

What we all want, surely, is accurate judgement.

And at this point, a problem creeps in. Our line of judgers is not symmetrical in its appetite for the dispensation of “fair” judgement. At its right-hand extreme, this looks like a further grotesque waste of resources, as only the state (or its agents) is really in a position to assess. And any effort by the state is itself a needless drain on everyone as a whole (they’d say). Whilst the inhabitants of the left-hand end would be happier to put more resource into fair assessment, and if savings had to be made, trimming the thresholds of entitlement. Not symmetrical.

So we see funny little tunes being played: we delegate assessment to the ATOSes of this world–close enough to the state to do the dirty work, but far enough away to take the drop if it all goes horribly wrong. We see campaigns for “class action” to entitle a whole group without the need for individual scrutiny. We get caught between facile statements like “ministers believe as many as one in four people claiming sickness benefit will be judged to be fit to work” and safety nets like the human rights legislation that we’ve fought to secure. Debates, clashes, contradictions.

Reality. A reality which will not be helped by any politician claiming to be able to stand at a distance from a line of people and to know where their worthiness lies.

So. Of course we love certainty. We like stories with endings. Some would rather have a few hundred deaths from malnutrition than all this pansying about trying to get it “right”.

I’m not one of them. I want to see a commitment from my leaders, not to more macho statements of generalisation, but to funded, forensic, detailed judgement. To the effective and sensible use of technology (in the right places) in supporting that judgement. To a separation of the person from the situation. To a more considered balance between individual rights and responsibilities. To an acknowledgement of the power of culture to make an impact here.

We don’t need any more of this “scrounger” crap. It’s divisive, demonising, and it gets us absolutely nowhere. And even worse than that, it distracts attention from any real effort on reviewing how we make these vital judgements.

A proposal:

At around age 14, set aside a week away from the standard education curriculum for kids to work, in groups, in a very focused way: on a project with a simple brief, but a complex reality.

What does that mean?

Well, it might be to design a way of giving everyone in the UK £100 (as an alternative quantitative easing approach). It might be to identify all public buildings to find better ways of using them. Or to model what would happen if jails were abolished (or if speeding convictions carried automatic jail sentences). Or to design a rail system that would be ultra-resilient to sudden, massive demand and freak weather conditions.

Anything really.

Or at least anything that would show that a bit more effort is required in reality to do some of the things that really matter in this world. Even though they might sound simple. So that first one: giving everyone £100? Well, you’d need to work out who “everyone” was…what would qualify as entitlement…how to get the money to them securely and trackably…how to deal with claims that it hadn’t been received (true and fraudulent)…how to deal with those who didn’t want to be on any state registers but still wanted their cash… You get the picture. Putting real world details around a nice, simple concept.

You’d cover analysis, planning, teamwork, logistics, consequences (seen and unforeseen). And probably a whole lot more. You’d learn about edge cases, the ability of a small number of difficult situations to eat up disproportionate resources, and how you have to design for the awkward, not just implement for the easy.

And out of all this, there might, just might, be a tiny chance that statements like “well, I don’t see why they can’t just…” or “how hard can it be to…” would be cast around just a little less lightly. And questioned a little harder when falling from the mouths of politicians.

Because the problem is this: when we’re small, our world is small. And simple. Decisions are clear, motives unambiguous, morality absolute. Things are, or they are not. Laws are clear, enforceable and enforced.

The King says “make it so!” and the Knights make it so. The Princess makes her choice, and the losing suitor slinks away, never to play a part in this or any other story.

And so it goes.

And then things change. Our world gets bigger, and more difficult. We realise that society is a loose patchwork of consents, of unwritten codes, of behaviours.

And do we change, too? Or are we content to carry on with an increasing pretence that the world is monochrome, that things can be made to happen by dictat, and that anything involving sixty million people need not be any more complicated than something involving a handful?

Do we continue with these childish fantasies, and follow leaders who–even if they believe in their hearts that what they propose is at most only partly achievable–must dance the dance of the simple: spouting policies that can never be delivered, just so they continue to look…like what? Like leaders. Right.

Left-wing and right-wing, we dance up and down the same spectrum of choices: of levers that can be pulled in various directions, of societal mores running from the brutal to the soft, the feudal to the flattened. We might choose different starting positions, and have certain favourite themes and moves. But if we get stuck with these lame little models of “why don’t they just…”, and come to believe that wickedly difficult problems are actually easy, then we’re all stuffed.

Because we do believe. On a mass scale. Because we were never taught any differently. We weren’t taught to think harder, to go deeper, to challenge rigorously, or to live the reality of what implementation might actually be like.

And so things like social and economic policy get very broken. Preposterous, simplistic “solutions” float around: hoodies marched to cashpoints, rioters’ families evicted, a single ID number, watertight borders, cities scoured of benefit claimants, a single central health record for everyone…the list goes on. (That last one would make a great school project, by the way. Starter: think who might need to view and/or change that record–including the patient–what their interests and motivations might be, and how all those agendas stack up against the benefits.)

It’s an awful lot easier to believe in simple magic than to work through hard science. And very much easier to whip a crowd up behind you, too. Asking those hard questions has become the antithesis of leadership. What a splendidly vicious circle!

And yet, it can be broken. With so many other large scale problems of capability or understanding, we try to fix things at source. Through education, for example. It beats me why we’ve never seriously attempted this route.

Would a more aware, canny, and yes perhaps cynical population really be that frightening? Or would we sniff out the stupid and actually become far more tolerant as a result?

I think it’s worth a try. Be a hell of an interesting week, anyway.

(It took me until I was 17, and half-way through A-level Economics, before the reality pennies started to drop. That transactions mostly have two sides to them. That someone’s good deal is often another’s bad one. That public finance doesn’t begin with some kind of magic money tree in the Treasury courtyard. That expectation can be as powerful an influence as factual evidence. That people don’t always do what you expect them to, even when we have laws to force them to. It felt like a real privilege to have my mind stretched like that, and I’ve always felt a bit more of it could go a long, long way.)

As I write this, I’m sitting on a stationary train. In a station. The rail app on my phone tells me it’s the train I want. But the signs on the platform are totally blank. And the guy in uniform on the train doing the uncoupling says he doesn’t know where it’s going.

So, do I believe what the app tells me? Rather than embark on an exercise in Bayesian conditional probability, it’s making me think about that phrase “digital by default”.

Because I’m still not entirely sure I know what it means. Or, even if I do, that I’m seeing it used consistently.

And this experience with the phone app right now is a good reflection of what I think it should mean: that a service has been built, first and foremost, so that its delivery in digital channels is the way that it works best.

–that information in the digital channel is “the truth”.

–that if the train is switched to another platform, the digital channel will be the first to reflect this.

–that train staff will be looking at their own digital devices for information before they look at platform signs, or paper print-outs of departures, or get on the internal intercom to the driver.

That, to me, is digital by default.

An underpinning design principle that the service is supposed to be like this. Not, as has so often been the case, with digital features as a sort of awkward bolt-on after the fact.

I pointed out to a member of station staff a few weeks ago, who tried to stop me, that I was going through the gates to platform 10 because this device in my hand was telling me my train would be there. And I trusted it, at least enough to wait there.

He looked in incomprehension at this device. It wasn’t part of the script. The situation was the very opposite of “digital by default”.

So, apart from this nice, rosy, optimistic definition, what else have I seen it used to mean?

Well – sadly, sometimes as the Mr Nasty of channel-shift enthusiasts: the reason why counter services will be closed, the hammer that will force people to abandon their Luddite ways, the only real means of forcing out cash savings in this techno-progressive world we were told so much about.

And if people don’t want to shift, then tough. They won’t have the option. Default, innit? Capisce? Ok, if they’re really incapable, because of disability or crap connectivity, there’ll be some sort of stop-gap. A bolt-on, if you like. After the fact.

Now, does that sound somewhat familiar?

Or, for a third flavour, how about Mr Nasty’s gentler cousin: the service redesign that still has the closure of non-digital channels at its heart, but attempts to do so by attraction to a better, digital alternative, rather than brute imposition?

The interpretation you hear is connected to the source you hear it from, I guess. These versions all have different political palatability, and provoke different passions in different audiences.

So which do you i) think it really means now? And ii) which one would you like it to mean?

A – a fundamental design principle from the ground up
B – channel shift by imposition and removal of choice
C – channel shift by being more attractive than non-digital

Your answers, below, if you please:

The very fine John the Lutheran has dug out and circulated some guidance that many people find themselves thinking about at this time of year: a few advisory notes from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on the fraught topic of photography in schools.

What we’re after of course is something “official” that us camera-toting parents can haul out (preferably with a big Her Majesty’s Government crest in the letterhead) and wave at hovering Netmums and headteachers who are getting fretful about all this Internet Paedo Malarkey they’ve read about in their redtops.

Because we all know that deviance involving children increases proportionately with focal length (or indeed aperture size, in its more advanced stages).

Sadly, though it was probably a worthy attempt at the time (December 2005), the ICO guidance falls down in a couple of important areas. [Update: 1713 071211 There is another version of this guidance available, dated June 2010, which is, erm, identical – it’s as if Facebook never happened…]

Although it’s a bit useful–in that it basically says “it’s ok for parents to take pics of kids, even in a school, if those pics are for personal use, and nobody should freak if more than the snapper’s own kids are in the frame”–it gets off on the wrong foot by trying to tie everything back to the Data Protection Act. Sure, if you’re assembling class records, or access passes, a photo has immediate DPA relevance.

But like a shaky student in an exam, the ICO write answers about the DPA because they know about the DPA–even if that’s not quite the question that’s being asked.

They are right in saying that most instances of photos being taken have no data protection implication, but that isn’t really why parents and teachers are getting twitchy these days.

No, many concerns today are over something that’s not even mentioned in the guidance perhaps (being fair) because it didn’t really exist in 2005. [I shall be less fair now that I’ve seen the 2010 version!]

Yes. Adults will take photographs of children, without explicit permission of the parents of each and every child in the picture, and put them on the Internet. [SFX: Internet Paedo Malarkey klaxon]

No, this is a social concern. And indeed a social media concern. One that’s not such much about privacy, or spamming, but about darker fears. Because we all know that Internet photos are photoshopped together with scenes of bestial savagery, and traded by rings of shadowy perverts. We know about it because we read it in the Daily Mail.

Being blunt: people only really freak if they think you’re either going to make a) money or b) porn out of their kids’ faces (the fact that without highly verified model releases, the commercial exploitation just ain’t going to happen being neither here nor there).

Those fears aren’t going to be countered by waving “permits” from some bit of government. It might help a bit, of course, if a headteacher really does pull the “because of Data Protection…” line. Though remember that the Trunchbulls of this world are not easily moved by proffered sheets of A4, especially with Crown Crests on them. It’s their school, and their Word is Law.

And angry, scared parents are angry and scared–driven by emotions that it’s sometimes hard to comprehend. If you get to the point where you need to show them a letter from the government, you’ve probably already lost the battle. You certainly won’t be having any more fun at that Nativity Play, anyway. Best avoided.

No, the only answer in my experience is to approach with subtlety. With smiles. With requests for permission where that looks sensible. By keeping an eye out for parents who don’t look comfortable, and making an obvious point of avoiding their children. By offering to share the pics with other parents. Saying you’ll send copies to the school has worked wonders for me. (Suddenly everyone wants their child front and centre.)

By perhaps not taking your 400mm and sitting smack in the centre of the front row shooting up the skirts of the tinies. Yes, I’ve seen this done. Unwittingly. Take a good, small lens that’s good for indoor light. Don’t blaze away with a flash.

Be respectful. That is all.

A policy so incredibly inhuman that it stops you in your tracks.

How could this ever have been dreamed up? Who thought this would ever be acceptable? How on earth did a blank-faced politician manage to express it in cold, bare words?

This was pretty much my reaction (and that of many, I know) to this story about cancer patients on chemotherapy being forced into more stringent checking of their eligility for sickness benefits.

Particularly that last question: how on earth was such barbarity actually expressed?

That press release from Macmillan, linking to a petition, was getting a LOT of attention.

So I had a search around for some wider perspectives. And found…well, not much more, really.

A few blog posts are springing up to denounce its atrocity, but there’s precious little in terms of any deeper analysis of this policy. Or, reading in more detail, not policy, but something that is being “consulted on” and “could”…

OK, so it’s a “could” story. I approach anything containing the phrase “that could” in its first two lines with a bit of caution. (And then look for a range of robust, related sources.) Generally, “it could” = “it might, but it probably won’t, though WHOAH LOOK AT THIS HEADLINE”.

Make no mistake: I am hugely supportive of the aims of those campaigning for better treatment for people in such a terrible position. I completely understand Macmillan’s wish to remove even the burden of testing from a whole swathe of people in an enormously challenging personal situation.

But I can also at least appreciate the existence of an argument that says: if some people are on a particular drug regime, but are symptom-free or want to work, should they automatically be signed up to receive benefits?

Contemplating the fact that any issue involving a large number of people involves tricky edge-cases (and false positives and negatives) doesn’t automatically make me a card-carrying Tory benefit slasher, m’kay? (And I honestly don’t need a ton of comments in testimony to how grim chemo is; believe me, I’ve been pretty close to it myself in the last two years.)

But what I’m really interested in is the rational debate here. With both sides putting forth their attempts at cogent argument, the better to inform us all of what’s really going on.

So what did the government actually say? In its response there are references to the prior involvement of Macmillan in this review. Involvement which clearly did not end well. Here are the relevant paragraphs from that PDF:

31. Professor Harrington asked Macmillan Cancer Support…to assess whether there were improvements that could be made to the provisions for people who were undergoing treatment for cancer. During July 2011, the Department received evidence from Macmillan which was endorsed by Professor Harrington.
32. The Department accepts the evidence presented by Macmillan that the effects of oral chemotherapy can be as debilitating as other types of chemotherapy.
The evidence also shows that certain types of radiotherapy and in particular of combined chemo-irradiation can be equally debilitating. As a result of the
evidence supplied by Macmillan, the Department has developed detailed proposals for changing the way we assess individuals being treated for cancer.
33. If introduced, these proposals would increase the number of individuals being treated for cancer going into the Support Group. They would also reduce the
number of face-to-face assessments for people being treated for cancer as most assessments could be done on a paper basis, based on evidence presented by a GP or treating healthcare professional.
34. We had hoped to introduce these proposals in April 2012. However, following detailed discussions with Macmillan, we have been unable to secure their
support to our proposals which were based on their evidence.
35. As a result, the Department now intends to seek a wider range of views on the proposed changes through an informal consultation. We wish to gather views
of interested stakeholders, including individuals affected by cancer, their families and carers, employers, healthcare practitioners and cancer specialists
as well as other representative groups. We will launch this consultation during December 2011.

This needs some decoding, clearly. Perhaps Macmillan put forward their evidence about effects, along with their proposal for a block exemption from any ESA assessment, and this latter part was rejected? One has to read between the lines, though. And “going into the Support Group [undefined]”? I mean, it sounds nice, but does it mean “added to the numbers of those needing to be formally assessed”? I guess it does. But should any reader have to guess? UPDATE (1544 121206) Support Group as defined here is actually jargon for where you get put when you’ve been assessed as eligible for benefit, and are NOT required to work (but can if you want to). Which, taken as read (and how else should one take it?) makes this all even more puzzling.

So there a few language games being played here, and perhaps more to the story than meets the eye. You’ll note the Macmillan press release opens with the careful wording: “…Department of Work and Pensions decision to propose changes”. The word “decision” echoes more loudly than “propose”, of course.

DWP hasn’t made a decision. It has made proposals. See what they did there?

But this post is not about the arguments for and against the policy, merely to acknowledge that they probably both exist (whether they’re particularly strong, or not).

This is an observation on communications.

If someone, especially someone approaching or undergoing chemotherapy (or close to someone who is), sees this press release, there’ll be some FUD (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt). That’s probably part of its intention. The piece is getting its points in quickly to influence a debate that’s about to take place in this consultation period. That’s what good lobbying and campaigning does. And more power to it.

But when you see FUD, maybe you want to see a broader perspective to reassure you. FUD is great for campaigning, but it has its downsides.

Will you find anything on the DWP or Department of Health websites by way of response that people might actually understand? Anything other than more impenetrable PDFs?

I can’t.

So the government are clearly losing the heart-and-minds battle on this one already. Losing? They’ve already lost. They didn’t even show up for the game.

And what were the government so keen on abolishing, almost as their first act after the election?

All those unnecessary communications posts.

Oh, how my heart bleeds for them.

I’ve just done a bad thing.

As a photographer, I’ve got a great deal of respect for the work of others. When copyright is held by someone else, and I don’t have a licence to take it or tinker with it, I don’t.

Well, I just did. (And remorse is fairly low on my list of feelings, to be honest.)

I picked up a nice brief today for a shoot in a week or two. As I often do these days, I put the address into Google Street View, just to get a general sense of where the building lies, and what sort of street vistas might be possible.

And there’s this guy. Right in front of the camera.

Shielding his face from the camera, with not one, but both hands.

I kept coming back to the image. Finding it a powerful visual metaphor for the evasion of surveillance; of a small, bowed figure at the front of the frame, seeking not to be identified.

Did he know about the face-blurring they use? Did he trust it? Did he care?

(Yes, I think he cared.)

So I did the bad thing, and scraped the image, un-watermarked it (in a symbolic echo of de/anonymisation?), gave it a little help with colour and tone and composed it as an image that told a story. As I like to do.

You can see it in its full glory by clicking on the preview below. You can download it and use it for stuff if you so choose.

(If I get into trouble, I’ll let you know. If you do, let me know.)

P.S. Thanks to Michael Smethurst for setting the image in the context of this fabulous story from Cory Doctorow, which then made me think more about its symbolism.

P.P.S. You can see the original image here (until it’s replaced by a fresh camera shot, of course).

P.P.P.S. Yes, I am fully aware that I’m quite happy to use Google Street View to help me in my work but also have little frissons about some of its other “features”. But thank you for thinking it.