So here’s an easy way to cut the NHS budget: fire every single manager, administrator and accountant from the health service. Only keep the doctors, nurses and technicians. And then the health service will operate as follows – everyone runs around the country, trying to find someone to treat them. If you can find a doctor, grab him and hold on, then he has to treat you. A sort of anarchic state of nature, but with health professionals. Sorted.

We could also fire all military personnel above the rank of General. Keep the vital frontline soldiers – the ones with actual tanks and guns and stuff – but do away with the red tape and bureaucracy of senior staff who, you know, tell them what to shoot at.

It sounds absurd, of course. So now let’s discuss Ed Balls’ dazzling plan to make savings in education by getting rid of head teachers…

Nonetheless, our school results are mediocre and on several social measures we’re among the worst in the OECD:

[T]he proportion of youth not in school, training or in jobs in the UK remains high, at more than one in ten 15 to 19 year-olds. This is the fourth highest rate in the OECD, ahead of Italy, Turkey and Mexico.

Education results are also low relative to spending levels. The UK comes out in the middle of OECD comparisons of how well 15 year olds do at school and in terms of the gaps between well and poorly performing pupils.

Underage drinking and teenage pregnancy rates are high. Drunkenness is the highest in the OECD, with one in three 13 and 15 year olds having been drunk at least twice. The UK also reports the fourth highest teen pregnancy rate after Mexico, Turkey and the United States.

On the plus side, at least we’re not bullies:

In other areas, the UK performs well. Children in the United Kingdom are materially fairly well-off. Average family income is higher and child poverty is lower than OECD averages.

Children in the United Kingdom also enjoy a high quality of school life. The United Kingdom ranks 4th out of 25 countries for children’s school satisfaction. Rates of bullying are also relatively low.

It’s worth noting, of course, that those drunk/pregnant problem teenagers were born before the big push towards high early years spending. So the jury is still out on whether the early years money is being well spent. I’m also not convinced that ‘having been drunk twice’ by the age of 15 (the OECD’s drunkeness measure) is necessarily a mark of anarchy and social decline. But perhaps that’s because I am myself a decadent young(ish) Briton, inured to such things…

In 1952 Turing was prosecuted for gross indecency after admitting a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself…

Alan Turing was given experimental chemical castration as a “treatment” and his security privileges were removed, meaning he could not continue work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

“This added insult and humiliation ultimately drove him to suicide,” said gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who also backs the campaign. “With Turing’s death, Britain and the world lost one of its finest intellectual minds. A government apology and posthumous pardon are long overdue.”

Turing served his country dazzlingly, as a key member of the team which cracked the Nazi’s Enigma code, and he received forced injections of estrogen in return. A reminder of the staggering homophobia of the British legal system which persisted until very, very recently.

As a mark of how far things have changed, consider Evan Davis’ interview of Peter Mandelson on the Today programme last month. The topic was unemployment, of course, not homophobia – and perhaps it’s beyond crass to note this at all – but here we have one of the BBC’s top presenters, on its flagship current affairs programme, interviewing the man who was (at the time) more or less running the country. Both are openly gay. And the British public don’t appear to give a damn.

The interview itself wasn’t particularly edifying (Mandelson was hellbent on bashing the Tories, Davis struggled valiantly to drag him back to Labour’s own policies) but its very existence tells us something about the retreat of British homophobia.

Andrew Sullivan, from across the Atlantic, also noted Britain’s huge strides, while lamenting America’s lack of similar progress:

When I came to America from Britain, the gay rights movement was way ahead here of the old country. No longer. Here is a list of the most powerful openly gay people in Britain. The whole list is a staggering contrast with the US.

It’s easy to sneer at the mores of previous generations – tougher to fight the injustices in our own. But Britain has made progress, and we should be proud of it.

As for apologising to Turing (the petition is here) – well, yes, by all means. But apologise to every other victim of these vile laws as well – war heroes or not. Wrong is wrong, whoever the victim.

Letters leaked to a newspaper show Mr Straw agreed not to exclude him from a prisoner transfer deal in 2007 because of “overwhelming national interests”.

Now I can see two different sorts of argument for releasing al-Megrahi. One is an argument about British national interests (philosophy buffs might call it the Parochial Utilitarian Argument), while the other is about Absolute Moral Rights and Wrongs (philosophers might call it the Kantian Arugment). The two arguments are:

1. [Parochial Utilitarian] Releasing al-Megrahi will allow British companies to secure lucrative contracts with Libya, enhancing the welfare of British citizens. I am a British politician, elected to serve British national interests. Therefore I will release him.
2. [Kantian] Showing mercy to a dying man is, quite simply, the Right Thing To Do, regardless of what that person may have done in their life. All humans should show mercy to dying people. Therefore I will release him.

Argument (1) is ‘parochial’ because it ignores the upset caused to the families of those who died in the Lockerbie catastrophe, many of whom are not British. Argument (2) is Kantian because it deals in moral absolutes (which Kant pushed hard, but utilitarian philosophy isn’t so hot on).
Now I can also see two arguments for not releasing al-Megrahi. And (wouldn’t you know it?), they fall into the same two categories:

1. [Utilitarian] The fury of the families of Lockerbie victims far outweighs any conceivable ‘welfare gains’ of BP employees thanks to new business contracts with Libya. Therefore I will not release al-Megrahi.
2. [Kantian] Murder is wrong. Mass murder of innocent civilians is simply unforgivable. Anyone who commits such a crime forfeits any right to mercy. All people convicted of mass murderer should be imprisoned until they die. Therefore, I will not release al-Megrahi.

So the fury over Jack Straw’s leaked memos boils down (I think) to an argument between a utilitarian and a Kantian, where the utilitarian is arguing for Megrahi’s release (it is in Britain’s “overwhelming national interests”) and the Kantian is arguing for his death in prison (”it is simply wrong to release a convicted mass murderer. Ever.”)

I fear that this isn’t an argument with a ‘right’ answer. I know that Megan McArdle eschews the utilitarian argument, her economic training notwithstanding. (Economics has profoundly utilitarian roots…) But I don’t even think this a straightforward argument between a Kantian and a utilitarian. I think both the Kantian and utilitarian arguments could cut either way.

What I do believe is that politics tends to function better when politicians are of a broadly utilitarian bent. (The purpose of a political class is to compromise, not to bicker about moral absolutes.)

But then the greatest politicians of all time were those who believed that some things were absolutely, unambiguously wrong. Which only baffles me further. Do we want politicians who are utilitarian about the small stuff, but Kantian about the big stuff? Or just politicians who are utilitarian when we agree with the majority, but Kantian when we agree with the minority?

I simply don’t know…