More thoughts on North Korea: Expanded Deterrence versus Air Strikes

Last night I wrote a lengthy piece about North Korea, how we got where we are and assessing the different possible ways we might respond from Missile Defence to Economic Sanctions. Since then a friend has suggested another possibility, a credible way to live with a North Korean nuke; this is expanded deterrence. In this post I'm going to first discuss why I do not think this will work and then move on to put some detail on how I think airstrikes are likely to play out.

The idea of expanded deterrence, set out in this brilliant American Academy article which also highlights just how plausible nuclear terrorism is, is that we expand our capabilities in nuclear forensics so that we can hold Iran or North Korea to account if they supply weapons to those who then use them against us. The problem I have with this is that I'm inclined to believe that if a terrorist nuked us and we were less than 100% sure it was a North Korean weapon or took longer than a few weeks or months to establish it was North Korean we might well not nuke North Korea.

Forensics would need to be not just good but rock solid. It would also probably need to be instant. Retaliating to incoming enemy missiles in a Cold War style confrontation is credible because it is done in the heat of the moment before the missiles hit or while they are hitting. However, could we decide to blow up every North Korean in the cold light of day without the slightest pretence it would prevent those we lost dying or bring them back? It would be morally monstrous.

That is the essence of deterrence; you need to establish your own irrationality (the acronym MAD was appropriate). That irrationality is credible during the heat of a nuclear war but not so credible some time after a strike. Of course it is entirely plausible we would react but I think there is too much doubt and I don't know how we can remove that doubt and make deterrence credible.

A state which we cannot credibly deter possessing nuclear weapons is as close to an absolutely unnacceptable strategic result as can be imagined. So, if expanded deterrence is not an appropriate policy, along with others like economic sanctions as I set out last night, how will air strikes play out?

I think that the first step would be to set a deadline of something like a month for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme and allow some form of international monitoring. I would expect them to refuse this request but the month gives us enough time to move a lot of military power, mainly airpower, to the area. I believe that this power is still available to us, it is troops that we are short of. If they back down, as Daniel Freedman expects them to, then we have a fantastic result and have illustrated our resolve without too much human cost. If they do not then we begin strikes.

I am not sure what their targets should be, this article suggests that we can do significant damage to the nuclear programme, but the targets available to us may well be limited. Other than that priority just hit every military or regime target you can find. You will have a similar result to that in Serbia but without an ongoing massacre of Kosovans. Our casualties will most likely be light and the collateral damage need not be too vast. Eventually, North Korea will have to back down or retaliate.

The big danger is that North Korea retaliates with its stock of about 100 missiles which can hit Japan or artillery and scuds that can hit South Korea. This is what makes this option deeply ugly and a least bad. If North Korea retaliates it can do vast damage and an awful lot of people die in what could become a serious bombing of Seoul and Tokyo or even a second Korean War.

However, it is important to note that there is something to be said for having the USAF on hand if it does come to this. If we try something like economic sanctions there is a smaller chance of North Korea risking war but if they do it will take us time to get significant military power in place to defend the South. If we are striking North Korea then we will have a running start in coming to our ally's aid. Sensible military plans should include preparation for the possibility that the need emerges to reorient our military force very quickly. We would wind up using the South Koreans as a kind of Northern Alliance in a reprise of the strategy which won the war, if not the peace, in Afghanistan.

I think that China's response to military strikes will not amount to much. They will not risk economic sanctions against us as they have far more to lose from such disruption than we do. An economic downturn does not endanger our system of government. Equally, if a war does start then, in order to curtail a flow of refugees, it will be in their interests to see it end quickly. All of the great guerilla wars, Vietnam, Iraq relied upon outside support and I do not expect this to be forthcoming in North Korea.

Finally, the human costs of a military option, and its attendant risk of a full scale war, need to be weighed against both the yearly human cost of the death and suffering in the world's last Stalinist state. The other cost of the status quo is the possibility of a violent collapse without our intervention either in response to outside pressure from economic sanctions or from the regime's own opaque inner workings. The expected deaths or expected misery calculation for the risk of a full blown war needs to be balanced against the costs and risks of the status quo.

In conclusion, I accept that there are huge risks to military strikes but I do not believe we can effectively manage the risk of a nuclear North Korea. Military strikes are the most credible response open to us and can be effective. Unfortunately, as I described last night, I do not expect that anything remotely that forceful is coming. I expect that we'll get some form of mild economic sanction and then a lot more prevarication until North Korea gets a workable nuclear bomb. The world will then become a scarier place.

North Korea

There seems to be quite a lot of discussion in the US about who needs to be blamed for the failure to prevent North Korea gaining nuclear weapons. The conservative response is to call Clinton's Agreed Framework a joke and argue that this was the crucial failure; this essentially consists of posting up this picture as often as they can. By contrast, liberals are describing this as a failure of the Bush administration thanks to its abandonment of the Agreed Framework. To my mind the Bush administration was faced with two unpleasant but plausibly effective options; fighting or appeasing. The first would probably involve massive casualties to all concerned or just to the North Korean civilians if it took the form of economic sanctions but would establish a credible cost to defying us. The second could only delay the bomb as Uranium enrichment was still allowed and went against the natural inclinations of a tough talking President but would probably have meant that we would not have had a test yet.

The big problem was that they chose a third option that could never be effective. Talk tough but do nothing. This was a result of other priorities following 9/11, the fact no one would offer a course of action they could claim would be anything but a least bad (there was no 'send a small army and be greeted with flowers' plan) and uncertainty regarding how to balance confronting North Korea with keeping South Korea on side. This is a similar problem to that in Iran but, for better or worse, without European nations who aren't too proud to talk. The line in the New York Sun blog that having them negotiate with Iran was a favour to the European nations is demonstrated as ridiculous if you think about whether allowing Australia to take the North Korean issue would be a favour as well.

However, there is only a limited function to discussing how we got here. A more important question is what we do next. Frum, in a much better article than the one I discussed earlier, gives a three point plan:

1) Speed up the work on missile defence: Alykhan tells me that with layers of different missile defence solutions this can be effective but I'm yet to be convinced. Brecher has a good sceptical view of the state of missile defence. Either way, I think the North Koreans can be confident that we are infinitely less likely to invade if they're threatening to nuke Tokyo so our missile defence, while it could be important for our defence, doesn't mitigate the effects on the region of a nuclear armed North Korea.

2) End economic aid to North Korea: a major reservation I have is over how effective it is likely to be with a regime that we know has starved hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of its people to death before and has neither collapsed nor apparently been sobered by that experience. Also, how important is Western aid? I'm led to believe that most of the aid to the DPRK comes from China. Finally, there is something deeply immoral about economic sanctions; they are the modern form of WWII strategic bombing, designed to hurt your enemies civilians until their leadership surrenders from the heartbreak of it all, and have roughly the same record of failure.

3) Bring East Asian countries into NATO: this sounds like a good idea to make our involvement in any war they initiate in the future assured and thereby make deterrence more credible. However, I doubt it would have the effect Frum argues it would in effectively punishing China. They are opposing North Korea's nuclear programme, the problem is that they are dragging their feet, and are likely to see us taking action to square off with them as unjustified and provocative; this will most likely make them less rather than more co-operative.

One possibility is that the test was either a fake or failed. There are varied accounts of the size of the blast from seismic data and Alykhan sees the rationale to faking it from the perspective of scientists wanting to please the Dear Leader. Regardless of this the nuclear weapon is still some distance from being usable. Most of the Manhattan project, after all, was not about producing a bomb but producing one which could be deployed as a bomb. This makes some form of military action more plausible.

Simon Jenkins is arguing for air strikes as an effective and less destructive response than economic sanctions with a populace that will starve so quickly. I have found his articles strikingly bad recently but his argument here is remarkably cogent when it sticks to North Korea. A big question is whether we can do anything to his missile and nuclear production sites, there has been a lot of study of the feasibility of air strikes against Iran but I know of no such study on North Korea. There is also a possibility Simon Jenkins does not discuss in his article, that North Korea might respond by attacking the South. However, it remains the most credible response which might prevent North Korea becoming a nuclear power and make Iran think twice.

So, at the end of this quick survey of what has happened, is happening and could happen in North Korea I think the most plausible response left is that of airstrikes. However, I do not expect this, or much else, to happen. The failures in the postwar management of Iraq have left further military entanglements politically unfeasible. I expect that both North Korea and Iran will both wind up with nuclear weapons and the West will, in the end, prevaricate and do nothing.

A theme I will develop in a big post at some point is that the chain store paradox of power, deterrence, could have been well served by invading Iraq and demonstrating that we would not stand for those who defy our will and pursue courses of action which threaten the international order. However, our obvious failure in the postwar period has given our populations the false impression that foreign interventions must be Vietnam and made wars impossible at least until there is a new US President who can separate himself from the perception of incompetence hanging over this one. Iran and North Korea understand this and it underlies the rationale behind their nuclear weapons programmes.

To conclude, this crisis came about thanks to a failure to face up to the situation despite loud proclamations of its gravity. The best solution is to end that prevarication and demonstrate that the West is no paper tiger. However, I do not expect this to happen.

David Frum being shallow

- Tax cuts? No.

Announcing tax cuts now while in opposition years from an election? No.

- More public money for government-monopoly health care? Yes.

While I'm not sure about Cameron's policy on the NHS this is a total mischaracterisation. He has said he will fund it properly but has never said anything about the amount of Conservative spending compared to Labour plans.

- Same-sex marriage? Enthusiastically yes.

Sure. Welcome to the 20th century.

- Big supermarkets? Offenders against the environment.

This is an example of a key plank of Cameron's policy prescription?

- Kyoto Accord. Absolutely.
- Terrorism? Close Guantanamo.

Following the line of that noted Communist McCain.

- Illegal immigration? Don't talk about it.

Absolutely. This is something to deal with when forming policy but at the moment Cameron is setting the philosophical direction of his leadership rather than the actual plans. With many years till the next election this is entirely sensible.

- Israel's response to Hezbollah's rocket attacks? Disproportionate.

Okay.

- George W. Bush? No friend of ours.

That's just not true. Cameron has said that Britain needs to be supportive not slavish in the special relationship. Nothing he has said has suggested Britain should not be a friend of the US.

Sure there are some policies I'm not sure of in this list but it just isn't a picture of the priorities Cameron is setting out for the Conservative party. Instead of setting up a strawman of Leftie Cameron Frum could have addressed the meat of Cameron's speeches over the conference or since his leadership. He could have discussed whether the personal responsibility agenda was an plausible one, I wonder why he didn't?

"David Cameron's stress on social justice...is not, as unsophisticated critics imagine, a leftwards shift from liberty to equality. Cameron is not proposing an extension of state power. He is proposing an extension of social power, a move in favour of the voluntary institutions--the 'social enterprises'--that exist in neighbourhoods themselves."

What does this mean? Who knows. Its incomprehensibility is its point."

Oh, because he can't understand a fairly simple sentence. What is so complex about a move towards voluntary organisations and other social efforts in place of state power as solutions to problems the British public wants to hear their political parties address?

18 Doughty Street's First Night

I was out debating North Korea and then drinking last night but I have since managed to 'Stream Again' the evening's programming and am very impressed.

The first programme was a little faltering. I wasn't quite convinced that the two speakers really had much to offer on the subjects at hand. Also, I agree with whoever e-mailed in that the palms were a little intrusive; a little pruning might be needed. Still it was nice to see the first evidence of an interview technique which was based on listening to the interviewee rather than showcasing the interviewer's cynicism.

The foreign policy section was excellent. Oliver Kamm proved as brilliant on TV as he always is in writing and the other guests all had something to contribute. I was a little dissapointed that the speaker against neo-conservatism couldn't do a better job explaining the conservative challenge but given the quality of neo-con thought on display he was facing a hard task.

Vox Politix was also good. It wasn't as high minded as the foreign affairs piece or the John Howard interview but still interesting. The one change I would hope for in future is that it feature a little more disagreement. At times it seemed that they would move on, out of some sense of politeness, when they hit issues they seriously disagreed on and Iain would have done well to encourage them to debate.

The interview with John Howard was brilliant. The set up with two speakers commenting after his discussion gave interesting perspectives. It felt like a love-in at first accustomed, as I think we all are now, to the Paxman style but it was informative, made the most of the opportunity of the interview and gave us a great insight into his views. It trusted to a grown up audience to decide what they disagree with for themselves.

The final programme was a nice, informal end to the programming. They remarked that it had been a right wing evening; I hope they don't panic at the right wing balance of this first night. There is nothing wrong with being balanced towards the right wing so long as you remain open minded and engage across the ideological spectrum.

I think it was a hugely promising first night and, if some of the rough edges can be ironed out, points to a great future for the channel.

Are the Conservatives a party? Yes.

Damn your principles! Stick to your party - Benjamin Disraeli

Samizdata has an article by Paul Marks, which I came across through the Kitchen, attempting to describe how the Conservative Party is not really a party at all thanks to its lack of principle. He has two central themes:

1. Parties are creatures of principle.
2. The Conservatives are not Eurosceptic and, as such, have no principles.

The first point is misconceived. Parties must have some common ground, some principle, to form themselves around, however, they are clearly not the model one would choose were we interested primarily in maintaining our principles. Only independents can be principled. Anyone who joins a party must necessarily moderate their views if they are to form a common platform.

Parties are, rather, an agent for moderation. Their function is to form people into coalitions of those who are willing to put their similarities ahead of their differences. A fine example is David Davis who is now emphatically supporting the Cameron changes in the Conservative party. This is not because he is some grubby chaser of votes but because his differences with Cameron, over the timeline to the announcement of tax cuts for example, matter less to him than the similarities. This moderation is essential with the need to build popular will behind a legislative programme which will not, and should not, give anyone all of what they want.

Here we move on to the second point. The similarities which keep Davis on board are old Conservative themes: an emphasis on personal responsibility, an assertive, Atlanticist foreign policy, a distrust of state spending as a panacea for social problems, valuing the family and pride in Britain's role in the world. They are the same sorts of common values which also mean that I, having voted for Cameron, would have remained a loyal Conservative had Davis or Fox won the leadership.

All of these themes were a part of Cameron's keynote speech and the Conservative conference. By contrast, there is no reason to see policy towards the EU as so crucial. There is no way that the Conservatives are necessarily against the notion of engaging internationally; we began as an imperial party. Of course, the style of our engagement has changed but this would seem more a result of the world changing than the party. The EU is far from the only treaty we are signed up to and most of the serious treaties involve some compromise of sovereignty. There are obviously problems with the EU but there are also areas where Cameron has pledged to emphasise British rather than European solutions; moving towards a UK bill of rights to replace the Human Rights Act for example.

I have discussed before how those in favour of EU independence need to acknowledge that it is an issue on which reasonable people can differ. It is important to note that the fairly radical plan I outlined in a post over the weekend for changing Britain's policy could be implemented without leaving the EU; the EU does not dominate our decision making to the extent its opponents alledge. Equally, the line that Britain cannot change the EU for the better as it has been trying since it joined and has failed is unconvincing. It entered in a weak position being a latecomer to a club whose central partnership had already been established. Recently it has done significantly better with the accession of new members constituting not just a nation building success but a boost to the idea of Europe as a looser kind of union.

The ability of the Conservatives to adjust their political approach, as Cameron is, without endangering their coalition is a testament to a strong set of central beliefs in the party not its weakness. We have never proven wrong on matters of principle in the way that the Labour left were in the 1980s over nationalisation. The Conservatives are certainly a party and a great one.

Good old Salman Rushdie

"Speaking as somebody with three sisters and a very largely female Muslim family, there's not a single woman I know in my family or in their friends who would have accepted wearing the veil.

I think the battle against the veil has been a long and continuing battle against the limitation of women, so in that sense I'm completely on [Straw's] side.

He was expressing an important opinion, which is that veils suck, which they do. I think the veil is a way of taking power away from women."

The Guardian reports that Omar Bakri Muhammad has "said Rushdie was an apostate whose life was still in danger."

Despite knowing as well as anyone the danger he could place himself in by speaking against the taboos Islamists enshrine through threats of violence, Salman Rushdie just won't stop speaking out.

I've never read the Satanic Verses, its content doesn't seem important to the debate over whether it is legitimate that the views contained be expressed and I always have a busy reading list, but I think I will now. It seems like a fine time to send a little royalty money Rushdie's way. Also, why has the distasteful Sir Iqbal 'death would be too good' Sacranie been given a knighthood and Rushdie not been similarly honoured? Standing up for your right to free speech when so many others have folded or kept quiet has huge positive externalities and deserves recognition.

Of course, as far as Rushdie himself goes there probably isn't any real need for my strange form of donation or official recognition. Salman Rushdie seems happy despite the risk he faces, the picture the Evening Standard chose to accompany the article gives centre stage to his stunning wife and he is, I believe, quite wealthy. Well deserved.

The Campaign ad too strong for the Republicans

Considering the ads that its candidates have run when an ad is too strong for the Republican party you know it is going to be special. This, via the New York Sun blog, is truly special:

Windsorstan

The term Londonistan has become something of a cliché which is misleading to anyone trying to understand the geographical extent of the problem. While London is the prime target the 7/7 bombers came from Leeds and the most recent plot was uncovered in Manchester. The confrontation between our intelligence services and the police and violent Islamic extremists is taking place across the UK.

The less violent version of this clash between mainstream British society and Islamic radicals is also found both in London, with the protests at speeches by the Pope or refusals by police officers to guard the Israeli embassy, and, increasingly, in the rest of the country. What is interesting, and new as far as I know, is that this clash is becoming a serious issue even in bastions of Middle England such as Windsor. From this, fairly small, town there are a couple of big recent cases:

1) Soldiers of the Household Cavalry, returning from Afghanistan, have had bricks thrown through their windows and angry messages written on their property. They also received phone death threats. In the end Army leadership advised them to move elsewhere to avoid causing trouble so near the Windsor Castle home of the Queen. This was quite a big story which reached the national news and the Sun report describes it well.

2) This Sceptered Isle highlights riots between gangs of white and Asian youths in Windsor. The Ascot, Windsor & Eton Express reports that the disturbance began with growing local frustration at the Dairy's use, and clogging, of a residential road. The dispute grew with an application to use part of the venue as an "Islamic education and community centre". Locals do not like the idea as it would further congest a residential area but apparently it has already been converted to that use before the application has gone through.

It turned ugly with reports that the "security guards from the dairy are aggressive and abusive to mums collecting their kids from school. They won't let anyone down Shirley avenue because they say it's their land." Another woman alledges that she was beaten with a lead pipe by men from the Islamic centre and her car smashed up while going to check on her son during disturbances in the area as white and Asian gangs squared off.

There has since been a petrol bombing of the dairy and arrests for public order offences and possession of offensive weapons. Now the police have been given the ability to put dispersal orders in place under anti-social behaviour legislation.

There is a symbolic importance to Windsor. As Britons we are all subjects of the House of Windsor; any confrontation there has tones of Stalingrad. However, it is more important as a sign that the confrontation over the British Muslim community's proper relationship with the rest of Britain is not going to be confined to the Northern Cities and the poorer parts of London.

While the confrontation was taking place there it was closeted away from the middle classes who are most populous in the Home Counties and dominate the British political discourse. Like the case of the taxi driver who would not take a guide dog because it was 'unclean' but got unlucky and had picked a legal officer for the Royal National Institute for the Blind these stories in Windsor make the failure in integration increasingly relevant to the politically important.

There is a growing fear in Britain that 'no-go areas' are developing which the Muslim community claims as its own and can segregate off from the rest of the country. This could probably have worked well for those who want to cut British Muslims off from their fellow citizens had it been limited to the traditional areas in which the British have always benignly neglected immigrant communities such as the East End of London. The problem may have been ignored for some time until it eventually became apparent that the process of steady assimilation was not going as well as it has for previous waves of migrants.

However, tangle with the British middle class on their home ground and there will be a reaction far more quickly. The shape of that reaction has yet to be decided. Hopefully, it won't be internment but there is an increasing chance it will be something stronger than we might have expected a year or so ago.

We're all victims now

Mr. Eugenides points to the Times report of a Civitas study on the number of people who are a part of some kind of victim group (female, gay, ethnic, disabled, elderly). Apparently it is now up to 73%.

I am a part of no victim group. As a part of the white, male, able-boded and straight community I am beginning to feel a little left out. I'm sure someone is discrimating against us.

Actually, how many white, male, able-bodied, straight people do you see working in your average theatre? Disgusting.

There is a Simpsons quote which seems relevant:

"I'm a white male, age 18 to 49. Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are."

UKIP and 'train set politics'

The UKIP are in something of an internal mess thanks to, as I have noted before, their party containing far too many of those who are not quite up to making it in mainstream politics. A first past the post system is always going to give a major advantage to the biggest parties and this should ensure that compromise happens within the major parties before an election rather than through averaging out the view of voters in negotiation afterwards as is done with messy consequences in countries such as Germany.

If the UKIP's logic that EU membership is an absolute wrong as a violation of our sovereignty is correct, I do not share this view as I'm not sure it is qualitatively different to the UN in this regard, then compromise with a Tory party which does not agree to leave the EU right now is impossible. This would make the UKIP a good idea as a point of principle.

However, as a mechanism to influence the mainstream political balance it is likely to do more harm than good in euronihilist terms. It weakens the relatively eurosceptic position by splitting the vote. It isn't even likely to successfully threaten the Tories into going more eurosceptic as that will be more than balanced out by distancing a large number of those most enthusiastic for leaving the EU from the internal debate within the party.

Their flat tax policy was an exercise in what I like to call 'train set politics'. It is constructed without much regard to transition or implementation as the UKIP is never going to have to put any of this into practice. You can tell this from the distinctly glib response to the threat of a fiscal imbalance. Planning for a deficit thanks to tax changes at a time when there is a looming challenge to fiscal policy from growing numbers of old people is a distinctly poor idea.

If you are going to do train set politics then do it right. Don't start from current spending priorities and then work out what you can cut. It sounds negative and the word cut in particular sounds unpleasant. Start from zero and play God properly. The rest of this article is my best effort, after about an hour or so's hunting down some figures, at a fiscal policy. As such, if there are errors or miscalculations please forgive me.

Alistair Heath's research into the flat tax isn't exactly designed for my purposes but by my calculation from its numbers we have roughly £507.5bn to work with if we were to implement it this year. This sum may change in the future but the basic gist with respect to the rest of the economy will remain the same in the short run. This means significant tax savings for all income levels but particularly for those on lower incomes combined with a significant number of people being taken out of tax altogether (up to a £9000 income). The dynamic effects of this can be expected to lead to a significant increase in revenue quite quickly as such shifts to a low tax economy tend to but I'm not going to rely on that. You could think about that as around £60bn of tax cuts but it is a lot more fun to think of it as £507.5bn to play with. So, how do we spend just under £510bn?

Divide it the following way:

£60bn - just over double the defence budget so we can have a bigger army, equip it better and will have the military to match our foreign policy ambitions.

£70bn - just over double the public order budget to pay for more prisons, police officers and the resources to properly defend property rights, keep order and protect vulnerable communities from criminality.

£30bn - to cover our debt interest payments... can't be avoided.

£30bn - for a substantial boost to the transport budget which is needed in the short term although should be targetted to fall sharply in the medium term with privatisations of the motorway network and other changes.

£1bn - for democratic institutions.

£20bn - for environmental services (this is currently the housing and environment budget). More research is needed into this item but my guess is it can't be removed.

£30bn - to put into a 'vulnerable people's fund' which could be distributed to those, I would expect a relatively small number in the end, who cannot work and for whom the main benefit below really isn't enough. If that amounts to about 6 million people (10% of the population) they can be allotted around £5,000 (to over double their basic income) each but the true amount would probably be more concentrated (a smaller number of people receiving more). A large part of the initial cost is likely to be pensioners who haven't adjusted to the new system and have not saved at all.

£4441.66 x 60m = £266.5bn to pay £4441.66 to every man, woman and child in the UK. This provides them with a basic income and serves to replace unemployment benefit (under £3200 at the maximum rate), the minimum wage (everyone gets this) and current state spending on services. Living only on the £4441 would not be comfortable as it is not a lot and there will be additional costs such as healthcare which are currently paid by the state which would need to be funded out of that money but being unemployed isn't comfortable in the status quo and is an ugly situation to be in regardless of the material results.

Note that this leaves people paying income tax from a private income of £9000 plus the basic income of £4441; they will pay income tax from a total income of £13441 and up.

You then mandate that people have health insurance of some kind and children have education up to standards set by a regulator. This can be covered for the poor out of their basic income as set out above. If someone is completely unemployed they may be in a slightly tighter spot than they are now after the cost of public services but not by a lot and thanks to the complete absence of a poverty trap (they don't lose benefits when they start earning) any extra money they can earn doing odd jobs can supplement this so fewer will be trapped in complete unemployment by the prospect of losing benefits if they start work.

Such a system would leave the state ensuring that everyone can afford basic services and providing a safety net. It would do as little as possible to weaken incentives to work and increase your income. It would provide the finances to law enforcement and the military to ensure that no one could abuse its citizens and that it could play a full part in ensuring the stability of the wider world. Would be fun wouldn't it?

The UKIP are welcome to copy this and it will serve them better than their current scheme. However, I would suggest to them that the pragmatism and moderation required to engage with the Conservative party, even if they would prefer a stronger ideological flavour than the current leadership, is, perhaps, worth the effort and will allow them to spend their time more productively.

Those Crazy Danes

Dizzy highlights new video which has surfaced of the Danish People's Party's youth wing having a "Draw Mohammed" competition. They may be unpleasant people but at least they're not being cowed into silence like the rest of the us; when even South Park can't show Mohammed there is a problem.

The text from 'Defending Denmark', who posted this clip, is quite funny. A combination of the idea that drawing cartoons of Mohammed automatically means the cartoonists are 'far right' (there are much better grounds to worry about the People's Party) and FREE workshops in constructive communication which sound wrist slittingly bad. The clip Dizzy links to isn't the best so take a look at this one, if you're not too offended by cartoons of Mohammed or the sight of Danes:

The War Nerd on Venezuelan Arms Deals

The War Nerd is arguing here that the arms that Chavez has been buying, chiefly fighter jets, are massively ill suited to fighting a war against the US and are, instead, designed to build up a body of soldiers he considers more loyal. As such, this purchase suggests he fears his own military more than he does ours.

I think this analysis is strong but I think that it underestimates the degree to which Chavez wants fighter jets for no military reason but rather because modern fighter jets are visibly costly and create a clear impression of a man with money to spend. All of the reasons that Brecher cites for fighter jets being impractical strengthen their value as a visible indicator of his wealth and power.

Phew!

Turns out it was a conference season blip...

Straw and the Veil

There is a lot of bluster over Jack Straw's comments on the veil. The claim that this is discrimination is ridiculous: Straw has not disadvantaged anyone for wearing a veil and there is no suggestion he has ever been aggresive in his requests for them to be removed. Equally, the idea that this debate, about whether stopping wearing the veil would be a good move on the part of Muslim women to aid cohesion, can aid the far right doesn't stand up. The far right need integration to be a hopeless cause to justify their desire to keep ethnic groups separate and this is not helped by suggestions of methods by which integration can be advanced.

A simple survey could establish whether Jack Straw is right. Do a survey of non-Muslims and ask if they would feel significantly less comfortable talking to someone wearing a veil. I am almost certain that you would find a massive result in favour of it making them feel less comfortable. We rely on cues in people's facial expression to feel confident that they have understood us. That is why trying to be witty over e-mail is such a risky strategy. Hurting the ability of non-Muslims and Muslims to have a comfortable conversation hurts the everyday interactions which keep a lid on communal distrust. Such distrust plays into the hands of the unpleasant in both Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

Flying Monkey Watch #2

Wicked the Musical is running in Victoria near my flat. I worry about the modern tendency to convince people that children's stories are a legitimate way for adults to spend their time; Harry Potter is for kids and an adult reading it needs to kill their inner child. As such, the idea of this musical frustrated me a little. A friend tells me it is good but I've been skeptical of such claims since people told me Shrek was fun for all ages.

However, I didn't think about the wonderful consequence of a musical set in the Wizard of Oz 'universe'... flying monkeys!

Blogroll

As should be clear I've reformed my blogroll. It is now separated along the lines I set out in my post on blogging. If you want to be added then e-mail me. Also, reciprocal links make me smile.

Conservative Foreign Policy

During the conference William Hague discussed his 'new direction' for foreign policy but unfortunately from his description it didn't sound terribly new.

The discussion of Darfur is starting to sound worryingly like a cliché. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that Britain does not have the capacity to take on another major operation at the same time as Afghanistan and Iraq. That is not going to change for some time after the Conservatives take over regardless of whether or not we make improvements to the armed forces. As such, all we can really do is implore the international community to act. What the world is lacking is not a recognition that Darfur is a mess but the political will from nations with the military capacity to put their forces into a situation which could potentially turn ugly with Al Qaeda already threatening any non-AU force.

The Conservative Party have not, thankfully, taken the unfortunate road of asking what is in the Atlantic alliance for us. All decent nations have a common interest in the security which the US is working to uphold; the question is whether we wish to be a free rider. Choosing to cop out in that manner would be immoral and dishonourable and has, rightly, not been seriously considered by the Conservatives. As there is still a rough consensus within the party that the US is fighting a good fight against Islamic extremism, if sometimes fighting it poorly, our foreign policy will, and should, remain deeply Atlanticist. I'll make the case for the factors which should determine US-UK foreign policy in a post soon but for the purposes of this post it is just necessary to accept that there will be wars in the future and the Conservatives will, ceteris paribus, probably be supporting the United States.

What that leaves us with is the pledge to be a friend, but not an uncritical one, of the US; the pledge to be a liberal conservative. However, this in itself is a tantrum not a policy. Clearly no Conservative government worth the name would start fights with the US for the sake of it. When people talk about Love Actually moments or Michael Howard discusses distancing us from the US what the public heard was that we were planning on doing just that and they were not impressed. Starting fights with the most powerful nation in the world, the strongest nation on the right side of the War on Terror and a long standing ally is no sign of principle. The question which needs to be answered is clearly when, in which circumstances, a Conservative government would be a critical friend of America.

The rhetoric on torture and other infringements of rights was the main hint at an answer here but I'm not so sure that is likely to be effective. In matter of how we go to war and how we execute that war Britain, as the key US ally with its own troops going in, has a reasonable amount of sway. If anyone tells you that we don't point them quickly to the attempt to get a second UN resolution which was at Blair's insistence. However, questions of torture and indefinite detainment are seen by the US, I believe, as essentially their own business. In war and peace-keeping there are Britons making enormous sacrifices which give weight to our opinion; our thoughts on Guantanamo do not have such emphasis.

Attempting to get a second UN resolution was well meaning but misguided. It forced us to have the debate over going to war in a setting where any one of Russia, China and France had the same influence as the US. It meant that the debate over the legitimacy of the war was settled by them and the other members of the security council at that time. The seeking of a second resolution looking like an admission that we should not go to war without French approval rather than an attempt to bring others on board. That and the over reliance on the existence of NCB weapons as the justification for war made a mess of attempts to sell this action to the public and international community.

The attempt at a second resolution was the major British influence on the US and it did involve a spending of credibility we had as a reliable ally. Once we were responsible for the mess of an attempt to go back to the UN our council on other matters was weakened by the question this raised over our judgement. A better case for the way Britain should have used its influence is in the execution of the Iraq war.

This is both where the war has gone wrong, the chaos afterwards, and the reason for public dissaproval. I don't think opinions of the war were contingent upon the finding of weapons of mass destruction as they reached their highest point at the immediate end of the war when WMD had not been found but we did seem to have done something genuinely worthwhile for Iraq and had gotten rid of a genuinely unpleasant and destabilising dictator. The situation soured as it proved difficult to reestablish order following the war and popular opinion followed this deterioration. The reasons for this happening seem best summed up to me in the rules for running a successful peacekeeping force from Paddy Ashdowne that Niall Ferguson quotes in Colossus:

1. [To have] a good plan and stick to it. This plan needs to be drawn up, not as an after-thought, but well in advance, as an integral part of the planning for the military campaign.
2. [To] establish the rule of law - and do so as quickly as possible... It is much more important to establish the rule of law quickly than to establish democracy quickly. Because without the former, the latter is soon undermined.
3. To start as quickly as possible on the major structural reforms - from putting in place a customs service or reliable tax base, to reforming the police and the civil service, to restructuring and screening the judiciary, to transforming the armed forces.
4. [To ensure] that the international community organizes itself in [the] theatre in a manner that can work and take decisions.
5. [To establish] an exceptionally close relationship between the military and civilian aspects of peace implementation.
6. [To] avoid setting deadlines, and settle in for the long haul... installing the software of a free and open society is a slow business. It cannot be done... in a year or so... Peace-keeping needs to be measured not in months but decades. What we need here... is "sticktoitiveness"... the political will, the unity of purpose, and the sheer stamina as an international community to see the job through to lasting success. That means staying on, and sticking at it, long after the CNN effect has passed.

Clearly a worrying number of these lessons were ignored in Iraq. The excessive US confidence that they were liberating an Iraqi people immediately ready for freedom led them to seem too eager to leave which incentivised a struggle for post-US power, to not take security seriously enough near the beginning and to allow a shortage of manpower.

The Conservatives are right to be thinking about the Atlantic alliance and the extent to which it should be critical as well as supportive but I would suggest that we are better placed to influence American conduct in its interventions abroad than its idealistic purity at home. Conservative criticisms of Blair should centre upon his wasting of our important influence on the totem of the UN instead of making sure that the war and peace were fought in the right way.

Policing who you want to Police

It may sound understandable that a policeman of Lebanese origin did not want to police the Israeli embassy while they were at war with his countrymen. War is a rather emotional thing. He felt ill disposed towards Israeli's, made that clear to his superiors and they moved him off the case. As a result of this no one got hurt and there were plenty of other officers to watch over the embassy.

The reason it is utterly unnacceptable is that if he is admitting that the biases emerging from his being anything other than a British policeman and citizen will affect his ability to protect people then how can we be sure this will not feed into his other work? If he sees a Jewish person being verbally or physically abused will he respond as we would expect?

This kind of question undermines the police force as a body of neutral enforcers of the law and turns them into a series of interested groups policing for their communities. Such an outcome will lead to more distrust of everyday policing as an officer's personal biases in every crime are questioned by every criminal and victim. It also strikes at the notion of an equality of justice. This police officer should be told that he is not in the right career.

Gurkhas in Afghanistan

With the Taliban closer than 50 yards, Rifleman Nabin Rai, 20, manning a heavy machinegun on the roof, had several rounds ricochet off his weapon before a bullet went through the gunsight and hit him in the face.

"His commander called for him to be medi-vacced out, but he refused to come down from the roof," said Major Rex. "Later he was again hit, this time in the helmet. He sat down and had a cigarette, then went back to his position."

Makes you feel a bit soft, doesn't it?

Flying Monkey Watch

A team from all over the UK are applying for a license to create a 99% human, 1% rabbit embryo. It will be quickly destroyed but does break down some old taboos in creating a frankenbunny. I find it hard to take these stories as seriously as perhaps they should be. I am willing to accept any research that brings this a little closer:

Chinese Execution Buses

I'm actually more positive than many conservatives on China and am hopeful that we can avoid a confrontation with them that would be enormously destructive. I'll write a broader post about China soon. However, every so often you get reminders that the Chinese Communist Party is capable of being really, disgustingly, awful.

Cameron's Second Speech

The response elsewhere to this speech has already been positive. There were two things I disliked:

1) The Minimum Wage

The Conservative Party should be highlighting new ways of helping those on low pay which act as a subsidy on their employment and lower its cost rather than a price floor which raises their cost to employers. That way we can spread the responsibility for keeping those in work living comfortably more widely through society instead of punishing employers who employ the poor.

2) The NHS

The principle Cameron set out for why we have the NHS, making it that people do not have to fear the financial cost of illness, was a noble one but is it really only the NHS which can provide this? Are the French, with an insurance based system, excluding more people?

I hope the campaign he is launching to stop NHS cuts is somewhat more imaginative.

Lots of stuff I liked:

1) Foreign policy

Still nothing much that was new but his rhetoric was much closer to the, very convincing, Fox than to the less impressive Hague. Correctly identified that this is not Northern Ireland and these are not people to negotiate with.

2) Crime

Very, very good. Highlighted the right causes of crime, social breakdown, and the right responses to crime once it had happened in making sentences count among other things. I like the Bill of Rights idea and look forward to seeing what the bill they come up with looks like.

3) Civil Partnerships

Highlighted that these should be seen as a celebration of the benefits of marriage rather than as an attack on it as an institution.

4) Tax

Hit the same notes as Osborne.

5) Restoring cabinet government

Very good. A presidential style is a thing to be careful of with the term Cameron's Conservatives being used so often.

Christianity vs. Islam

Good times.

Fox's Speech

Brilliant (this downloads a .wmv file). He described the problem with defence policy and spending which does match up to the ambitions of foreign policy. Set out in certain terms that British troops cannot answer to any body but our parliament. Linked the environmental focus on display at conference to the security costs of large funds being sent the way of oil states like Russia and Iran. This speech highlights the kind of approach I would want to see from a Conservative Defence Minister and recognises that this is one issue where the public really do not want us to go soft.

Hague's Second Speech

Hague restated support (this downloads a .wmv file) for Turkish entry to the EU which I liked. The rest of his time spent on the EU was a reiteration of the solid Conservative European policy which has been unchallenged in the party for some time. He was right to note, as I did a few months back, that Europe faces the dilemma of choosing the function it has fulfilled best, encouraging new countries towards liberal economics and sensible politics, or the function it treasures but has proved least productive with, political integration.

However, the rest of his speech, on the more interesting topic of broader foreign policy, was a statement of conventional wisdom. It contained nothing you wouldn't have heard in Gordon Brown's speech a week ago. This is partly a consequence of the broad consensus in mainstream politics around British foreign policy priorities if not detail but Hague needed to do more. His speech did not contain the 'new direction' he claimed it did and he needs to do more.

Osborne's Speech

"To do things and not just to say things" - Osborne (this will download a .wmv file) has an uncomfortable speaking style.

I think he did well to make explicit that stability over tax cuts is a call for fiscal conservatism rather than socialism, as many have bizarrely painted it. In particular the Thatcher quote is clearly aimed at critics who claim to be Thatcherite while finding fiscal discipline passé:

"I am not prepared ever to go on with tax reductions if it means unsound finance"

Sound.

However, the big issue this speech did not deal with to my satisfaction was the philosophy that will guide the ordering of priorities when it comes time to decide the shares of growth going to spending or taxation. Clues on a few of the following would be nice: Would an Osborne treasury view public service quality as largely a function of money spent? How important would it see the medium term revenue returns of tax cuts which are costly in the short term as being?

There were hints in discussions of Ireland's low tax economy but this never translated into answers to questions like these and others which are so crucial to the decisions the Shadow Chancellor will face when finally setting out Conservative economic policy in detail.

Timing is everything...

It would appear that my take on the race for UN Secretary General was quickly made obsolete. Ah well.

BBC journalism at its insightful best

This is actually an article about Cameron's using a dishwasher:

"In the latest instalment, David Cameron talks - above the yelps of his children - about his plans to "clean up" politics, as he loads his dishwasher. Would the famously green Mr Cameron not be doing the environment more of a favour were he to wash up?"

Does anyone care? If the option Cameron had chosen were, like the stories of cars accompanying his bike, significantly less environmentally friendly than some presentation of his had suggested or he was choosing to do something out of the ordinary and environmentally harmful, choking a Panda perhaps, then I can see the public interest but everyone has a dishwasher.

"In environmental circles, it's a lively debate."

Dishwasher energy efficiency? Detergent usage? I'd actually suggest it is an interminably dull debate.

"Some argue dishwashers are greener than hand washing because they use less water, detergent and power per cycle. A dishwasher can cut water consumption by up to 80% compared to hand washing in an average household, according to manufacturer Electrolux.

But others argue that when additional factors, such as the manufacture of the unit, the pollution created during distribution and the energy required to make the detergents used in them, are taken into account, it is questionable what is best."

You know what this debate suggests? That Cameron's choice of whether to handwash or use a dishwasher is utterly irrelevant to everyone but boring enviro-nerds who would be trainspotters if they didn't think their job being about the environment made a passion for dull details progressive and cool. If one is marginally more efficient it won't be enough to make dishwashers an important item in energy efficiency compared to, say, insulation so there really is no reason for the general public to care.

"When buying a dishwasher look for the EST's Energy Efficiency Recommended logo or the EU energy label. Compared to a model bought 10 years ago, a new A-rated energy-efficient dishwasher will save its owner £15 each year, according to Friends of the Earth (FoE)."

£15 a year? Score.

Now, we don't have any evidence but given that the Camerons are a quite well off family the energy efficiency of their dishwasher is almost certainly about how old it is. Given they recently moved in it is probably a modern one. However, it honestly isn't that important. This story is a litany of unimportant facts with no bearing on Cameron's environmentalism. It is a distraction from a serious debate on the environment and a bizarre manifestation of the desire to find false hypocricy in political leaders.

Just remember, this story is only possible thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded.

Hague's Speech

William Hague is a great speaker and his latest effort (this downloads a .wmv file) was no exception. It was genuinely funny, superbly timed and weighted and had some great attacks on the Labour record on important issues combined with funny character assassination.

However, that doesn't make me nostalgic for his days as leader. Hague is an excellent speaker but to be a leader requires political judgement in spades and this is what I don't see in Hague to a sufficient level to make a great leader of the Conservative Party. While it is probably true that no one could have won an election from his position the excessive focus on Europe and immigration of his campaign helped entrench the idea of us as a right wing pressure group rather than future government and this was a real harm to the party's prospects.

I'm also not sure about his stances as Shadow Foreign secretary. I disagree with his stance that the Israeli incursion into Lebanon was disproportionate for reasons highlighted by Krauthammer although I do suspect that it was incompetent. The EPP exit delay I am deeply ambivalent about and don't see the delay as being a breaking of a promise. He hasn't been making the noise about Afghanistan that I think he probably should be. The jury is still out on his performance in such a vital role.

David Davis's Speech

David Davis is not a brilliant orator but his speech (this will download a .wmv file) to conference was great. It was, as is to be expected, as conservative a speech as can be imagined with lots of time spent on old Prime Ministers, celebrating the value of freedom and the qualities of Britain. However, it was also a deeply Cameroon speech which went through the need for the party to change with new circumstances and defend the environment. His speech was the point I was making last night incarnate; it was talking about conservative truths but how they must be applied to the new challenges of a changing society. That Davis made such a speech when he could so easily have got away with faint praise or retreated into sniping since last year was an enormous credit to his character.

The Next UN Secretary General

Alykhan Velshi has an excellent article in the New English Review about the race for UN Secretary General. The current favourite, a South Korean candidate, is the candidate of the UN's venal status quo. The Sunday Times article on Kofi Annan this week was a brilliant summing up of the horrible costs of the status quo's corruption and lack of moral fibre. While it calls for some kind of accountability and change Alykhan's plan of action is clearer. His conclusion is that the US should veto Ban-Ki Moon's nomination as Secretary General. However, this is one situation in which Britain has exactly the same power and influence as the US; we have our own veto. Why don't we use it?

This would be a good way for Cameron to turn his rhetoric on improving the international response to crises such as Darfur and Rwanda, where the current UN bureaucracy have so thoroughly failed, into action. As such, it would be a fine initiative for the Conservatives to push for and a great way for Britain to make a difference on the international stage.

McCain's Speech

"You claim the future and you will see more of it than I will but I am content and inspired, in my late years, to know still, as I have always known, that there will always be a Britain and that the future is in the safe hands of the two great peoples who long ago decided to make history... together. Thank you and God bless."

This is the end of McCain's speech (this links downloads a .wmv file). That, and the rest of the last two minutes or so, was a wonderful expression of what the special relationship really means and why the question of "what's in it for us" so misses the point.

Cameron's Speech

I've just finished watching Cameron's speech (this will download a .wmv file) and I thought it was brilliant.

There was some stuff I disliked. I think that the talk of rap music's evil influence on children is a little out of date. Back in the early Eminem days it was the talk of the town but now I honestly don't think there are huge fears about rap music's hold on young people's imagination. Also, I need to look into the detail but European regulation on the chemicals industry has a history of mixed quality at best so I hope the Conservatives have picked the right regulation to strengthen.

However, his assault on Labour's record was superb. All of the initiatives which have been conceived as a press movement and abandoned as unworkable; other initiatives like ID cards which the Conservatives will and should scrap as illiberal and impractical.

His central theme of responsibility, personal, professional, corporate and civic, is a conservative answer to questions which the Left claims only it can respond to on poverty and social breakdown. These are the questions that the British people rightly want politicans to answer. The Cameron project is not about giving up on conservatism as a set of values but about applying those values to the new challenges of today's society. Today's speech made that clear.

The War Nerd on what is going on in Afghanistan

This is easily the most enjoyable article I've read about what is going wrong in Afghanistan. It's desperately offensive so don't read it if you haven't got a hard head and a sense of humour but otherwise enjoy the show. One quick, relatively mild, example:

"Worse yet, right behind those tanks came American do-gooders whose idea of pacifying the Pushtun was doing incredibly naive stuff like starting a TV news show with female anchorpersons or whatever you call them. I'm not making this up. First thing the US occupation officials did in Kabul was start a news station with some 19-year-old Pushtun girl as anchor. That was our idea of winning hearts and minds. That's what was going to calm down those bearded angry dudes: seeing a perfectly saleable daughter telling them the news, as if she was the one laying down the law."

I'm currently trying to work out how much of it I buy and what it means for the War on Terror and, particularly, British policy.

Pension Problems

The British Airways pension fund is facing hard times. A £2.1 billion deficit is going to be a pain to deal with particularly as the stock market recovery and company contributions have already failed to stem the gap. The company is putting forward a package that involves higher retirement ages, half a billion pounds from the airline and limits to the future growth of the pension plan. The GMB union plans to resist but seems certain to fail in moving BA too far from the position it has set out; the firm cannot accept a solution that leaves the deficit growing at such a rate.

It seems unlikely this will solve the problem indefinitely, the economy wide transition to defined contribution plans would seem a trend BA cannot avoid. Our pension system is transitioning from a well funded if low value largely private one of final salary pensions when Labour came to power towards a defined contribution scheme and the question is whether this will be well funded or poorly funded requiring large amounts of state funding and a major imposition on those of working age in the future. There is some evidence that the Conservatives are thinking seriously about this and Labour are at least making moves in the right direction with rises in the age of retirement but the unions are working hard to scupper this.

Opinion Poll blip or stumble?

It would appear that the Conservative lead has vanished in yesterday's polling. Dizzy highlights that this is likely to have a lot to do with a conference boost for the Labour Party. Certainly this would seem to explain why the Liberal Democrats are suffering more than we are; this would not be the case if the problem were really with the Cameron revolution.

However, some of the detail in the Telegraph's coverage of the poll does hint at a growing problem with a lack of definition in the new Conservative brand. I tend to ignore such ideas when they come from Menzies Campbell but when it is the Economist (premium content I'm afraid) arguing that Cameron is suffering from appearing policy-lite they need to be listened to.

The first thing to remember is that Cameron is actually very far from policy-lite. The reason that the Conservative Party is currently short policies is that a conscious choice was made to make the process of policy formation a slow one and take time about getting the ideas right. This was always going to mean a period in which we had little to show the electorate but has a reward in better plans for government than could have been arrived at by Cameron and Osborne sitting in an Islington restaurant before the leadership election. To decide on policy more quickly would be the genuinely policy-lite approach.

However, this involves very considerable risk. One of the political lessons that Cameron appears to have absorbed is that telling voters they were wrong is something they often respond poorly to; this is one reason why the message of change has been emphasised in his leadership. This is relevant to this situation because voters are rapidly gaining the impression, whether they are right or wrong, that Cameron is about style before substance and they will not easily change their mind. This will make such a reputation a hard impression to shift once the commissions report and it is more obviously untrue.

Before the local elections earlier this year I described the risk that a slow policy formation process implied if it cost us quick electoral results and left Cameron branded as a loser. That time Cameron's gamble paid off as the electoral results turned out well. Could it be that we are now seeing the same scenario unfold but with Cameron as good natured but vacuous instead of good natured but a loser?

"WebCameron"

This appears to be getting posted up this morning as I write.

A couple of quick thoughts:

1) Why didn't they send a cameraman along with Greg Barker? He appears to be filming himself and it makes an utter mess of the bit at the start. I'm pretty certain that if you were to offer a trip to Washington and meeting McCain you could have got a volunteer for the price of a ticket and a cheap hotel.

2) Of course McCain has been to England...

3) Perhaps try to make the interviews a little more substantial. If time is very limited discussing the contents of his flat might be somewhat less interesting than the thoughts of an American Presidential hopeful on the following:

• How he envisages the special relationship.
• Iran.
• Europe (this would make it less of a love-in).
• China.

A lifestyle piece requires a lot more time to luxuriate in your surroundings.

4) I'm very curious as to how all the "Write", "Upload Pictures", "Upload Video" etc. will develop. It will all feed into the "Open Blog" but its effect will depend on how rigorous the standard is for 'approval'. If, as seems likely, anything not definitely offensive is allowed up then it might become rather attractive to the crankish.

However, if it functions in a similar manner to Conservative Home's platform, as a way for people to request a spotlight on ideas/articles they are particularly proud of, then it might work quite well. This might require a bit of explaining though so people understand that they won't get angry rants etc. published on a site so closely connected to the party.

That's all for now. We'll see how it develops but I'm very hopeful. Any expanding of the Conservative web presence will strengthen the advantage the right already has on the web thanks to its fine blogosphere. If the two can help each other develop further then we should be able to put the left's patchy Internet presence even further to shame.

Frequent Flyer Miles get an upgrade

Virgin Galactic is nearing its launch and it has emerged that one of the first customers to take a commercial trip to space will be a businessman who has amassed a sufficient quantity of airmiles. Alan Watts, managing director of an electrical engineering firm (wait, does that name mean this is a joke?) will take off on the £98,000 trip in 2009. That's an incredible amount of flying isn't it? What if he turns out to be a DVT risk and can't go? Good luck Alan!

Looks like quite a lot of fun and the price mark is a lot lower than I thought it would be. That kind of price with the reductions that can be expected of a commercial service implies that ordinary people may be able to experience spaceflight within my lifetime. It will be as remarkable experience as flying was for those who experienced it first near the start of the last century. Another remarkable expansion of the human experience; don't let the pessimists get you down.

Pictures of the interior look swanky. Perhaps it is time for Easyspace to paint this all Orange?

A Bittersweet Life = King Kong

I rewatched A Bittersweet Life the other day and realised what the story's dynamic reminds me of. Allow me a moment off this blog's political raison d'etre.

**Spoiler Warning - I'll try to avoid giving away too much but you might miss out on a little suspense if you read this before watching the film**

A Bittersweet Life is the story of Kim Sun-Woo, a middle ranking mobster and hotel manager. While his boss, Kang, is out of town Sun-Woo is asked to keep an eye on Hee-Soo, the boss's much younger girlfriend and to kill her if he discovers her to be cheating. As all this unfolds the other strand to the story, a confrontation between Kang's empire and Baek Jr., a competitor, is putting Sun-Woo in danger as the two crime families face off.

The climactic moments of the film then ensue as Sun-Woo is first enchanted by Hee-Soo and then disobeys his orders as a result. The rest of the film is the consequence of this act as Kang punishes him for his disobedience and then Sun-Woo responds.

I think this story has a lot in common with King Kong. Both heroes start out invincible and wild. Kong's wildness is massive and brutal and obvious. Sun-Woo makes beating up other mobsters look easy and has his boss's complete support. The shadow boxing at the end of the film is intended to highlight this earlier personality I believe.

Beauty then changes them both. Kong finds something he cannot let go of and is made vulnerable. Sun-Woo is shocked out of the warped morality of the mobster and is unable to do what he needs to do in order to remain safe in that world.

Beauty kills both beasts. This is the cruelty that Sun-Woo refers to with his last breath in A Bittersweet Life. Both are shown a glimpse of something beautiful but it is not something they can reconcile with the brutality of their existences and it will destroy them both.

Muslim Protests and the law

I think I can make Iain Dale's point graphically.



Suppose a placard like my hypothetical creation above had been held aloft opposite this actual protest:



It actually seems pretty certain that there would have been more police trouble for a call for deification of a long dead Byzantine Emperor than there was for calls for the death of the Pope.

I think this is largely a result of having enforcement contingent on how nutty the people you wind up are (the protests by the Islamists were going to piss off quieter souls) as the method for assessing such offences is how likely the situation is to turn nasty. This would appear to be the legal enshrining of the same principle which said that the Danish cartoons should not have been published because the Muslim world would respond dangerously. The system is set up to make offending someone more of a problem if they are quicker to take offence and more likely to turn violent in response.

This set up causes huge problems because it gives in to the unpleasant instincts of extremists and, if it goes unchecked, could leave our society chronically unable to defend its values. It creates an awful incentive to react noisily or violently to minor upsets. It provides a legal advantage to those who do not wish to adopt the tolerant attitude which should be required of citizens of a liberal state.

Unfortunately, finding a policy solution to these problems is a more of a challenge than identifying them.

Here comes Giuliani

I'm beginning to think Giuliani will be the next President. His response to 9/11 gave people a respect for him which is going nowhere. Equally I think he can maintain his liberalism and appeal to the centre without the Republican right becoming too infuriated. These sentiments, from Deroy Murdock via an article by John Derbyshire, suggest why the right will forgive him:

"While prominent Republicans can give more conservative speeches than Giuliani, one would have to reach back to Ronald Reagan for a leader who has implemented more policies dear to the right."

Sen. Clinton has a similar advantage; liberals will forgive her a lot. However, I'm not sure she's as likely a winner as people seem to think she is. I think the Democrats feel burned by their choosing a moderate in order to beat Bush last time around and still seeing four more years of Bush. It might be hard to convince them to swallow that again especially if Clinton is playing conservative and they expect a moderate Republican like McCain or Giuliani.

Even if she does get selected Giuliani should give her a run for her money. He can dissociate himself quite effectively from the public dislike of the Bush administration thanks to having remained somewhat at the margins over the last few years and the underlying Republican electoral strength should not be underestimated. Does the old Clinton charisma come with the name?

McCain is being touted as the future President over here and the Cameron-McCain partnership, as will be showcased at the Conservative Party Conference is already being compared to Blair-Bush or Blair-Clinton. However, it looks to me like McCain's time has passed. Two Bushes and a Clinton covered his political prime, his media honeymoon peaked way too early and his crimes against the Republican movement are far less likely to be forgiven as they were against the party itself in the form of his 'maverick' political compromises with Democrats; disloyalty might lead him to screw the Republican party. Giuliani's crimes on values are less of a problem as they can be kept in line by conservative lobby groups. Derbyshire from the article linked above:

"Speaking personally, if I’m going to be made to eat my greens, I’d prefer it was by a tax-averse, social-libertarian, law’n’order Reaganite with a mild gun-control fetish, than by a socialist-feminist nag with a shady past, or a limousine virtucrat who equates reality, as in “Let’s get real,” with his own opinions. Abortion and gay rights don’t weigh enough to swing my vote. On gun control, I’ll trust the NRA to take care of our Second Amendment rights as capably as they have always done in the past, under administrations of every color. On immigration, I believe that by 2008 the tide will be running so strong for enforcement and restriction that no politician, or Congress, who tries to resist it will be credible with the public. On pretty much everything else, I agree with Rudy."

There are other candidates of course, Mitt Romney might go places, but for the moment these are the three big candidates and Giuliani looks the winner to me.

Borat riots conspicuous by their absence

There is a great article over in the New York Times (registration is free) about the contrast between the official reaction to Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat, insulted, and the popular reaction, mildly amused. This is far from the reaction to Danish cartoons, Papal speeches etc. in the rest of the Muslim world. This sounds remarkably, well, balanced:

"Last fall Mr. Bayen prepared a six-minute feature on the controversy over Mr. Cohen’s MTV performance that included clips of the skit depicting Mr. Nazarbayev, borrowed from Russia’s NTV channel. Mr. Bayen cited a history of political satire dating to Molière and recalled an old refrain from Soviet times: “I have never read Solzhenitsyn, but I condemn him absolutely.”

“I do not feel any false patriotism,” said Mr. Bayen, who, like all ethnic Kazakhs, bears no resemblance to Borat whatsoever. “I saw portions of his show, and I can say it is funny.”"

Here's the response from the man himself to 'his president's' comments:

Musharaff on the Daily Show

It's a good interview. Stewart isn't on his top, lethal, form (he demolishes Ramesh Ponnuru in about three seconds at one point during this interview) and the tea bit at the start is a little lame although it does make a funny lead into his Osama bin Laden question. However, an interview with a head of state is always going to be a little tame and he gets some interesting questions in.

There isn't a huge amount to say about it. He highlights why the 'deal' with tribal leaders in Waziristan should not be thought of as a deal with the Taleban but rather as an attempt to prevent any link up between these two regional powers. This has to make sense in a country where so much power is held by landowners with little political ambition but who, if mobilised, could seriously destablise any Pakistani government.

One thing he doesn't do, which he has been accused of, is seem to exaggerate the extremist threat to his own position. This is supposed to be his strategy for securing American help in maintaining military rule but does not appear in the clip above where he is a picture of calm; it would seem a very good opportunity for him to push such a perspective with an interview on such a highly rated US show. The only way that this view of Pakistani military policy can fit with Musharaff's behaviour in this clip is if we assume that he is emphasising his calm at the moment so that he appears an effective saviour of Pakistan from extremism.

Keep an eye on Pakistan. It is easily the most important country for Britain's War on Terror.

The Sex Lives of Vietnamese Prostitutes vs. Body Armour

This ad is absolutely genuine and truly remarkable. I knew American politics was always a little rougher around the edges than ours but this is a whole new level.

The Brussels Riots

There are riots in Brussels. These riots look an awful lot like the recent riots in Paris. Both sets of riots are supposed to have been sparked by the death of a young criminal (in Paris hiding in an electrical substation, in Brussels in prison). Both are largely composed of poor Muslim immigrants. Both involve torching things (cars in Paris, shops in Brussels).

The first thing to recognise is that this has very little to do with Global or Domestic Wars on Terror at the moment; there may turn out to be a link later but for now there appears to be no connection in Brussels as in France. There is also no real suggestion that this is Islamist violence: there are no calls for global caliphates, rants at American foreign policy or mentions of the prophet Muhammed.

As this is a separate phenomena it also has separate causes. In the War on Terror the lefty fallback that poverty is a root cause of terrorism is innacurate but in this struggle it would appear that poverty and, particularly, unemployment is a major underlying cause of the disturbances. As such, this implies that the solution here will involve taking action to address the economic malaise. Unfortunately, as was demonstrated in France, the still in work majority have no incentive to electorally trade things like their legal job security for increasing employment in the banlieues.

The fear has to be that this resentment and violence will translate into something darker. Surely it can't have escaped the attention of those who recruit and indoctrinate terrorists that there are large Muslim populations in the heart of Europe who are willing to engage in rioting and destruction and risk a backlash from the authorities and non-Muslims for no wider reason than a feeling of alienation and economic depression? Surely they will have realised this could be a superb source of recruits?

The longer the continentals cannot muster the political will for economic reform the greater the possibility that this unfortunate marriage of propensity to violence and desperation with an ideology of extreme violence is allowed to take place.

On Blogging

There's a somewhat fierce debate underway between Richard North and, well, everyone else as the focus of his rage has moved from the EU and MoD to the UK blogosphere. I think he has rather missed the point. There are a few different kinds of blogs which I will roughly characterise under the following headings:

1) The investigative blog

Searching for administrative errors and exposing 'cover-ups'; this is the category EU Referendum fits into. These are always going to be rare: investigative journalism is, as DK points out, a time consuming affair which many amateurs just do not have the time for. Equally, it is not an overriding priority for blogging: most of these discoveries are of minority interest and will not change the already existing public perception that the EU is a bit venal and the war in Afghanistan is not going great. Investigative work is worthy pressure on military and political leadership which is a decent way to spend one's time but is not important to the exclusion of the kind of political debate upon which governments rise and fall.

2) The analysis blog

This is the type of blog that mine aspires to be but the finest, and purest, example is the Becker-Posner blog. While there are few blogs which are as pure examples of this kind of approach as the Becker-Posner high minded effort they are certainly more common in the US than here. Their primary contribution is to regularly present some, hopefully interesting, new analysis of existing knowledge and contribute to the debate over its significance. They are usually less immediately topical than rapid reaction blogs and have a less adversarial approach.

3) The rapid reaction blog

This is the most populous category; the swearbloggers and the Daily Kos are examples of rapid reaction blogs. They will usually be the first to respond to new arguments presented by their opponents and will often also contain the most broadly resonant rebuttal. These blogs are important as they mean that the Toynbees of this world do not go unchallenged but for the rare occasions when some other columnist deigns to intervene. They are the lifeblood of the new debate which shapes thinking democratic opinion.

4) The gossip blog

This is the category Iain Dale and Guido's blogs fit into. Just because they are focussed on people instead of issues does not make them cheap. In a representative democracy issues of personality and interests are important. As we are electing someone to represent us for a period of years in which they can do largely as they please it is important that we know they are upstanding people so that when issues come up, as they always do, for which there is no prescription in the manifesto they will respond appropriately.

5) The round up blog

Examples of this are the ConservativeHome frontpage and Instapundit. There do not need to be many of these blogs but a good one is a huge asset to the community they serve. Their primary function is to highlight good stuff in the rest of the blogosphere and the mainstream media.

Of course most blogs are a mix but the important thing to note from this analysis is that all good blogs do not and should not look the same. Becker-Posner and Devil's Kitchen are polar opposites but both enrich the political debate. Richard North does not have the handle he thinks he does on what the blogosphere and media should consist of.

One final point, this was in the EU Referendum blog of a few days ago:

Conspiracy or carelessness? A vicious desire to do down the West or merely an ignorant and nasty desire to break up everything of value? Whichever it is, the BBC, the Guardian and the New York Times, together with their acolytes and followers can take responsibility for the murder of Sister Leonella Sgorbati.

This is both based on incredibly spurious research (that the BBC and the Guardian reported growing Muslim anger before it became obvious to the rest of us is hardly surprising from major news sources and does not indicate they imagined it) and shows a deep lack of moral sense. Anyone who blames those who report early incidents of rioting for someone murdering on the basis of a slight to their faith clearly doesn't have the right to lecture us about our immorality. If you kill someone because you heard about an insult to your faith that does not make the person who told you that insult occured a murderer. EU Referendum's search for conspiracy and media chicanery has led it to lose sight of even the slightest notion of what real responsibility means.

Tucker Carlson fights the good fight against "sensitivity"

I have noticed that certain words are used as proxies for awful political logic; anyone who uses them in political discussion get marked down in my book.

The first word I noticed this working for was "people". "People's" armies commit war crimes and oppress actual people at a far greater rate than your average army. "The people" is used as a shorthand for an abstraction of the state's interest separate from that of individuals and families.

Second was "justice". In a brilliant article Dalrymple points out that justice is the last thing we want in healthcare. Historical notions of justice are used to justify refusals to face the reality of the present in situations like Israel-Palestine where the Israelis see a reclaiming of land lost thousands of years ago and the Palestinians see theft of land lost 50 years ago. "Justice" is used in both cases as a justification for a refusal to face up to difficult questions in preference for angry, simplistic, rhetoric.

Finally "sensitivity" is increasingly shorthand for not treading on the toes of a Muslim community that should get used to the implication of living in a free society; you will be insulted. Another case of such hyper-sensitivity has emerged from Germany just this week. In the debate shown above the CAIR spokesperson attempts to make this about a mocking of Islam but is successfully shot down by Mr. Carlson who points out how this misses the point.

She also argues that it makes fun of a serious situation with serious consequences in terms of the struggle against radical Islam. Mocking and being insensitive to our enemies is a great way of making great conflict more bearable. The following verse did not insult or make fun of those killed in the Blitz (the logic used by the CAIR spokesperson when she argues that the ads mocks the victims of jihadists) and played its small part in creating the spirit which saw Britain through:

Hitler has only got one ball,
The other is in the Albert Hall
His mother, the dirty bugger,
Cut it off when he was small.