What is the function and impact of the new anti-satellite missile which the Chinese have been testing?
Conventional wisdom in the reporting of the test this morning is that the great danger is of an arms race but this seems a somewhat remote possibility to me. After all, two countries (Russia and the US) already have anti-satellite missiles and once you have them there isn't really anywhere else to race in terms of satellite destroying weaponry. Equally, I don't think the big difference will be in the military balance of power; this makes a limited difference to China's ability to fight the US in a conventional war.
To my mind the bigger impact would seem to be a change in how the game theory plays out with regards to a US intervention if a crisis were to develop such as a Chinese attack on Taiwan. At the moment China has no conventional means to attack the US directly and is restricted to attacking the military forces it has in theatre which would be a relatively hard target (although still vulnerable). If it were to use its nuclear weapons it would face a massive US nuclear retaliation which is a cost the US knows China is unlikely to endure for anything but a war of survival. As such, there is no credible deterrent to the US getting involved in a war in the Taiwan straights and the only costs it has to face are the actual military losses.
This is problematic for China because its airforce is massively undertrained and underequipped compared to the USAF and this is not likely to change any time soon as US technological development in fighter aircraft proceeds at a breakneck pace. A RAND study (you can read this online at that page without buying the report) into how a conflict over Taiwan might play out suggested that even a minimal US involvement would make China's chances of success extremely low.
What the satellite killing missiles offer China is an ability to seriously hurt US civilian interests, as well as possibly weakening their military capacity, without turning the conflict nuclear. As the US knows that this is a threat which the Chinese could go through with without facing nuclear annihilation it is much more credible than their nuclear forces and might make the US think again about intervening. This is particularly important if the question of going to war with the colossal Chinese military machine over a tiny state like Taiwan is already a pretty uncertain decision for the States. This could well tip the balance and cause the US to stay out of China's way.
If China has thought this through the same way I have the development of these missiles is a dangerous sign of Chinese intent to attack Taiwan militarily if it feels things are not going its way.
Friday, January 19, 2007
A New Blog for your Perusal
Go and take a look at Too Many of Us, a new group blog that I will be contributing to. I will still be writing for Sinclair's Musings just like normal but I'll be writing a few posts per week for the new group blog as well. The other members of the group have a variety of ideological positions from Centrist Democrats to hardcore Republicans along with Libertarian and conservative Conservatives. All very sharp though so it should be well worth keeping an eye on.
Doomsday Isn't What it Used to Be
While I hate to take on the rather impressive assembly of minds at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists I don't think this is entirely credible. How, exactly, are we ex ante closer to Armageddon than for large parts of the Cold War?
They cite the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programmes but how do these threaten global annihilation? Even if the worst comes to the worst you'll have a few cities plus one country gone; no fun at all but that is hardly the end of the world, is it?
Also, while climate change could conceivably wipe out the human race if it gets really hot not even those seriously worried about it, Stern for example, expect this to happen within the next hundred years. Falls in agricultural output and an increase in flooding aren't quite doomsday. Within this century global warming isn't an 'end of the world' event.
Peter Sutherland for Chair of LSE Court of Governors
There is currently a debate going among LSE students over Peter Sutherland's appointment to replace Lord Grabiner of Aldwych as Chair of the LSE Court of Governors and Council, the major non-executive decision making bodies of the school. This debate spilled over into direct action when a group of students blocked a speech he was due to give.
Interrupting the speech was a blatant violation of Sutherland's right to freedom of speech at the university. This deserved sanction but the Student's Union continued its run of failing to censure officers, even after a sabbatical vandalised the King's College Strand Campus last year, and did nothing about its trustees taking part in the protest. Now the debate is over whether someone with Sutherland's corporate connections should be offered such a prominent position and whether or not his appointment should be subject to student approval.
Sutherland's corporate connections are that he was Chairman of British Petroleum and Goldman Sachs. British Petroleum is proving the more contentious of the two and is the reason I wrote this piece in defence of BP for the LSE student newspaper earlier this year which details how, of course, the production of oil does, in the end, result in carbon dioxide emissions but if we accept that the supply of oil is currently both legal and necessary then BP's environmental record starts to look quite good.
There are more specific allegations; many are by proxy through its, non-controlling, share in Petro-China, problematic but not exactly a BP operation and their divesting would not improve matters. In another case Colombian Army units paid to secure BP sites against the FARC appear to have gone a bit off the rails. Baku-Tsibilsi-Ceyhan is a big project and there are concerns about compensation being paid to some along the route but given the size of the project there isn't too much reason to assume this is a systematic problem. What has to be remembered is that BP is a vast company with diverse operations dealing in developing countries; the only way to 100% avoid the risk of these problems is not to deal outside the developed world but this isn't exactly conducive to international development. Of course, BP should always do more to ensure integrity in its operations but to condemn Peter Sutherland for his involvement with the company is overreaction in the extreme.
His corporate qualifications make him an excellent candidate for the job with both experience in senior management of major organisations and the reputation to make an excellent ambassador for the school. It is hard to imagine a candidate with a more impressive CV short of a head of state. His time as Attorney General of Ireland may be controversial because of his role in assisting the preparation of an anti-abortion law but Attorney General is a neutral, civil service, role so this is not fair. That he has been in such a senior government role increases the depth of experience he brings to the job even further. His role at the WTO is even more prestigious although I understand that it upsets the extreme end of the anti-free trade movement. This is the kind of person who bolsters the reputation of the school; a reputation which matters to its student's futures and the school's academic potential.
The case that the students deserve to have a say in the appointment of the new chair is a little weak. The appointment comes from the executive staff of the school and is a part of its management. No one is forced to go to the LSE and its public money is conditional on government oversight not a general stakeholder involvement. Efficiency is ensured through competition with other universities rather than democratic accountability. Other school decisions are not subject to democratic vote either and it would be make management next to impossible if they were.
Sutherland is an excellent candidate for Chair of the Court of Governors and the minority of hard left students attempting to stop his appointment should appreciate that even if students were consulted they are more likely to be impressed by his CV than appalled. LSE is not a socialist infested institution anymore and looking at the numbers attending the events they run Goldman Sachs, at least, is rather popular with LSE students.
Interrupting the speech was a blatant violation of Sutherland's right to freedom of speech at the university. This deserved sanction but the Student's Union continued its run of failing to censure officers, even after a sabbatical vandalised the King's College Strand Campus last year, and did nothing about its trustees taking part in the protest. Now the debate is over whether someone with Sutherland's corporate connections should be offered such a prominent position and whether or not his appointment should be subject to student approval.
Sutherland's corporate connections are that he was Chairman of British Petroleum and Goldman Sachs. British Petroleum is proving the more contentious of the two and is the reason I wrote this piece in defence of BP for the LSE student newspaper earlier this year which details how, of course, the production of oil does, in the end, result in carbon dioxide emissions but if we accept that the supply of oil is currently both legal and necessary then BP's environmental record starts to look quite good.
There are more specific allegations; many are by proxy through its, non-controlling, share in Petro-China, problematic but not exactly a BP operation and their divesting would not improve matters. In another case Colombian Army units paid to secure BP sites against the FARC appear to have gone a bit off the rails. Baku-Tsibilsi-Ceyhan is a big project and there are concerns about compensation being paid to some along the route but given the size of the project there isn't too much reason to assume this is a systematic problem. What has to be remembered is that BP is a vast company with diverse operations dealing in developing countries; the only way to 100% avoid the risk of these problems is not to deal outside the developed world but this isn't exactly conducive to international development. Of course, BP should always do more to ensure integrity in its operations but to condemn Peter Sutherland for his involvement with the company is overreaction in the extreme.
His corporate qualifications make him an excellent candidate for the job with both experience in senior management of major organisations and the reputation to make an excellent ambassador for the school. It is hard to imagine a candidate with a more impressive CV short of a head of state. His time as Attorney General of Ireland may be controversial because of his role in assisting the preparation of an anti-abortion law but Attorney General is a neutral, civil service, role so this is not fair. That he has been in such a senior government role increases the depth of experience he brings to the job even further. His role at the WTO is even more prestigious although I understand that it upsets the extreme end of the anti-free trade movement. This is the kind of person who bolsters the reputation of the school; a reputation which matters to its student's futures and the school's academic potential.
The case that the students deserve to have a say in the appointment of the new chair is a little weak. The appointment comes from the executive staff of the school and is a part of its management. No one is forced to go to the LSE and its public money is conditional on government oversight not a general stakeholder involvement. Efficiency is ensured through competition with other universities rather than democratic accountability. Other school decisions are not subject to democratic vote either and it would be make management next to impossible if they were.
Sutherland is an excellent candidate for Chair of the Court of Governors and the minority of hard left students attempting to stop his appointment should appreciate that even if students were consulted they are more likely to be impressed by his CV than appalled. LSE is not a socialist infested institution anymore and looking at the numbers attending the events they run Goldman Sachs, at least, is rather popular with LSE students.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Menstrual Cycle Economics
Un-PC study of the month:
Why Can't a Woman Bid More Like a Man?
Yan Chen Peter Katuscak Emre Ozdenoren
March 15, 2005
We find systematic evidence that demographic characteristics,
especially gender, race and the number of siblings, education
backgrounds, as well as menstrual cycle, significantly affect bidder
behavior in the firstand second-price sealed-bid auction in the
laboratory. In particular, we find that women bid significantly higher
than men in the first-price auction, while the likelihood of dominant
strategy play in the secondprice auction is not different between men
and women. This finding provides support for the hypothesis that risk
attitude rather than cognitive ability is the main driving force for
the gender gap in competitive environments. At a biological level, we
find that, in the first-price auction, during menstruation, when
levels of estrogen and progesterone are the lowest, women do not bid
differently from men. The gender difference in the first-price auction
is driven by women during other phases of the menstrual cycle with
higher levels of estrogen and progesterone.
What is it about China that brings out the worst in left-wing commentators?
First, Stiglitz wrote what, I think, stands as the most idiotic article written by an occasionally serious academic and now Will Hutton brings us this analysis of the work of Mao. Most of the errors come from assuming that, had Mao not made it to the top, the Chinese would have spent the second half of the twentieth century twiddling their thumbs and waiting in vain for their socialist saviour to arrive. Only a cursory glance around the rest of East Asia today or China before and after Mao is needed to see that this would probably have not been the case.
After millenia of royal power under the absolute system established by the first emperor to expect a clean transition would be optimistic but there are degrees of autocracy. The Kuomintang were not pleasant people but they were at the relatively human end of unpleasant autocrats and not in the same league as the big three mass murderers of the twentieth century that Mao forms a particularly lethal third of.
This is just untrue. The Chinese economy grew at 13-14% in the 30s; faster even than it is today and far, far faster than under Mao's leadership. There was also significant progress in political reform with China holding its first and, so far, last elections, albeit only for local positions.
When you can see faster industrial growth before and after Mao why are we giving him such credit for the fact that China did manage some growth during under his leadership? For the rail network to double is similarly unimpressive. Britain's rail network doubled in a matter of years rather than decades without state involvement during our Industrial Revolution. I don't know much about irrigation but I would guess that is a similar story.
To claim falls in illiteracy as a Maoist achievement is pretty bold. As this article by Jasper Becker for the South China Morning Post describes significantly more was spent by Chiang Kai Shek, during a civil war, on education than by Mao during peacetime.
Healthcare under Mao was shockingly bad. While it may have been universal it was largely run by amateurs with neither proper equipment or training. It may have done as much harm as good.
As for women's rights. Movement on this, the abolition of footbinding for example, had begun in the last imperial years and, if one looks at the rest of Asia, there seems little reason to think that, without Mao, this process would not have continued.
Hyperinflation just before a revolution? Remarkable. Is this, perhaps, not entirely independent of the popular knowledge that Mao was likely to come to power?
The idea that Maoism was particularly tolerant of local differences is truly staggering. Go to Tibet where the insistence that the proscribed high agriculture was the only path to prosperity wrecked its environment and starved its population. The Mao personality cult was an attempt to ensure that even differences between individuals were subsumed as far as possible in a collective never mind broader regional or cultural differences.
During the Industrial Revolution British living standards, at the absolute low end of mainstream analysis, stagnated. This despite a population rising at the sort of rate which should have created awful Malthusian pressure. The working classes did just fine. US capital for industrialisation came largely from a combination of international borrowing, huge investment from the UK, and the transfer of savings within the North.
If you don't buy my analysis of Western industrialisation just ask yourself this question. Why, of all the East Asian countries, did China need to starve millions to death in order to obtain a surplus? Why was this not necessary in Taiwan (the closest to a "if Mao had never lived" case for China), Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong? Also, if hurting the poor is what allows rapid growth why did China grow more slowly than these countries which didn't starve their people to death?
Even under this criteria Mao is a failure. His objective was that China should become economically and, most importantly, militarily powerful in order to be able to confront the West. Thanks to the failure of his economic policies China, at the end of his rule, was far less able to stand up to the West than it might have been had it managed an economic performance even close to that seen in the rest of Asia.
This is just as absurd. Why exactly, for China, but not for the rest of humanity, were the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution necessary to make the case for liberal democracy? Giving Mao credit for his actions being so shocklingly awful that people then chose a different path is like crediting Hitler with modern German liberal democracy.
What? How on Earth is a more positive view of one of the most illiberal tyrants of the twentieth century the path to a greater respect for liberalism?
Also, Deng while wrong was not nearly as wrong as Mao. There are degrees of wrong and the wrong that kills millions of the people you are supposed to lead is the greater.
I continue to be amazed by the extent to which left wing academics are willing to attempt the most incredible intellectual acrobatics to cover for the Chinese Communist party's enormous abuse of its own people. Hutton defends Mao, Stiglitz eulogises the modern leadership. Instead of advocating that China continue to grope towards liberal democracy Hutton should note that the best solution, at every stage of the twentieth and now twenty-first centuries was, and is, to open its eyes, look at the success stories all around it and learn some lessons.
"In the first place, there is context. Life in the China of the first half of the 20th century was cheap, as writer Lu Xun wrote after witnessing the nationalists clinically murder students in Shanghai in 1926. After the imperial throne fell on New Year's Day 1912, China imploded into territories dominated by warlords over whom the nationalist government never established proper dominion."
After millenia of royal power under the absolute system established by the first emperor to expect a clean transition would be optimistic but there are degrees of autocracy. The Kuomintang were not pleasant people but they were at the relatively human end of unpleasant autocrats and not in the same league as the big three mass murderers of the twentieth century that Mao forms a particularly lethal third of.
"China was in economic stasis. The Confucian gentry - mandarin officials, landlords and merchants - had so effectively delivered the stability that hundreds of millions of peasants craved, that together they became an obstacle to vitally needed change. The peasants were wedded to obsolete farming techniques on tiny plots; the Confucian gentry were wedded to a system that allowed them to become absentee landlords for around half of China. They continued to run the country at the behest of the warlords, still genuflecting before Confucian maxims that were now hopelessly outdated. Japan's invasion in 1931 could not be effectively opposed.
There was a craving for a decisive rupture with all that had produced this. Radical egalitarianism, a kind of transformed Confucianism, seemed the only way to respond. The Confucian mandarinate had to be broken. The land had to be taken off absentee landlords. Savings had to be mobilised in a collective effort to create a modern industrial base. There seemed no other viable prospectus."
This is just untrue. The Chinese economy grew at 13-14% in the 30s; faster even than it is today and far, far faster than under Mao's leadership. There was also significant progress in political reform with China holding its first and, so far, last elections, albeit only for local positions.
"Mao gave vent to this ambition. The negative side of the Maoist balance sheet is well-known: mass murder, famine, injustice, and economic waste. But there are less well-known positives. Industrial output climbed 13-fold, albeit from a tiny base. The rail network doubled. Half of Chinese land became irrigated. There was a dramatic lowering of illiteracy. Near universal healthcare was established. Life expectancy rose; and despite Mao's appetite for imperial-style concubines, women were given the same right to petition for divorce and education as men. Their position was transformed."
When you can see faster industrial growth before and after Mao why are we giving him such credit for the fact that China did manage some growth during under his leadership? For the rail network to double is similarly unimpressive. Britain's rail network doubled in a matter of years rather than decades without state involvement during our Industrial Revolution. I don't know much about irrigation but I would guess that is a similar story.
To claim falls in illiteracy as a Maoist achievement is pretty bold. As this article by Jasper Becker for the South China Morning Post describes significantly more was spent by Chiang Kai Shek, during a civil war, on education than by Mao during peacetime.
Healthcare under Mao was shockingly bad. While it may have been universal it was largely run by amateurs with neither proper equipment or training. It may have done as much harm as good.
As for women's rights. Movement on this, the abolition of footbinding for example, had begun in the last imperial years and, if one looks at the rest of Asia, there seems little reason to think that, without Mao, this process would not have continued.
"And if Mao created an economy that while desperate for reform at least existed to be reformed - a statement that could not be made in the hyperinflation of 1949 when the Communists took over - he also bequeathed an ideological legacy that would permit reform. The Maoist communist concept of the so-called mass line meant that ideology and policy would emerge from respecting local differences and conditions. As a result, state planning and collectivisation of agriculture could be reversed more quickly in China than in the Soviet Union, under the guise of respecting local autonomy and creating local responsibility. Deng Xiaoping, the mastermind of the reform programme, was punctilious in describing the first phase of market-led reforms and decollectivisation in these Maoist terms."
Hyperinflation just before a revolution? Remarkable. Is this, perhaps, not entirely independent of the popular knowledge that Mao was likely to come to power?
The idea that Maoism was particularly tolerant of local differences is truly staggering. Go to Tibet where the insistence that the proscribed high agriculture was the only path to prosperity wrecked its environment and starved its population. The Mao personality cult was an attempt to ensure that even differences between individuals were subsumed as far as possible in a collective never mind broader regional or cultural differences.
"Few western critics today appreciate the scale of the task confronting any moderniser of China in 1949. Western economies created the surpluses to finance industrialisation through incredible exploitation - of their own working class, and in the US via slavery. It was never likely that China could achieve self-sustaining economic growth without great collective pain to achieve its own surpluses, or that this could be done without the involvement of the state. Spontaneous market-led industrialisation is a myth."
During the Industrial Revolution British living standards, at the absolute low end of mainstream analysis, stagnated. This despite a population rising at the sort of rate which should have created awful Malthusian pressure. The working classes did just fine. US capital for industrialisation came largely from a combination of international borrowing, huge investment from the UK, and the transfer of savings within the North.
If you don't buy my analysis of Western industrialisation just ask yourself this question. Why, of all the East Asian countries, did China need to starve millions to death in order to obtain a surplus? Why was this not necessary in Taiwan (the closest to a "if Mao had never lived" case for China), Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong? Also, if hurting the poor is what allows rapid growth why did China grow more slowly than these countries which didn't starve their people to death?
"This is certainly how Mao saw the task, with egalitarianism and collectivism the means. The German sociologist Max Weber, in a famous essay, argued that statesmen facing these kinds of challenges - of winning a war or of master-minding economic development - have to be judged by different moral criteria. Their decisions are means to achieve this ultimate end, and their choices have to be judged by this criteria rather than their inherent moral worth. Truman, for example, justified dropping the atom bomb on the Japanese because of the value of the ultimate end. Mao would justify his radical egalitarianism in the same way. We know that he was wrong. He, authentically and passionately, did not."
Even under this criteria Mao is a failure. His objective was that China should become economically and, most importantly, militarily powerful in order to be able to confront the West. Thanks to the failure of his economic policies China, at the end of his rule, was far less able to stand up to the West than it might have been had it managed an economic performance even close to that seen in the rest of Asia.
"The condemnation of Mao that convinces the majority of Chinese they need to change has to be more subtle than simply joining, say, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday in their book on Mao and seeing him as unrelievedly evil. Most Chinese are never likely to accept the verdict, not least because it is only a partial version of the truth. The better course is to build on Deng's description of Mao's Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution as China's " treasure", because they proved that radical egalitarianism was wrong."
This is just as absurd. Why exactly, for China, but not for the rest of humanity, were the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution necessary to make the case for liberal democracy? Giving Mao credit for his actions being so shocklingly awful that people then chose a different path is like crediting Hitler with modern German liberal democracy.
"But the lesson Deng drew - that the party can remain in Leninist control of a market economy that needs no democratic institutions -was as wrong as Mao's. Today's China is in many ways going back. The healthcare that covered nearly all of rural China under Mao now covers just 5%. China spends less on education than other developing countries. Inequality is high. The country is sliding down international indices for good governance, corruption and business competitiveness. To return to Mao's solution to these issues would be wrong and immoral; but neither can China continue as it is. The best option is to embrace democratic institutions - and the path to doing that is not to repudiate Mao but to see him for what he was. Wrong and cruel, but part of China's groping to find a way to cross the river."
What? How on Earth is a more positive view of one of the most illiberal tyrants of the twentieth century the path to a greater respect for liberalism?
Also, Deng while wrong was not nearly as wrong as Mao. There are degrees of wrong and the wrong that kills millions of the people you are supposed to lead is the greater.
I continue to be amazed by the extent to which left wing academics are willing to attempt the most incredible intellectual acrobatics to cover for the Chinese Communist party's enormous abuse of its own people. Hutton defends Mao, Stiglitz eulogises the modern leadership. Instead of advocating that China continue to grope towards liberal democracy Hutton should note that the best solution, at every stage of the twentieth and now twenty-first centuries was, and is, to open its eyes, look at the success stories all around it and learn some lessons.
Isn't the Beta period supposed to be over?
I'm looking at setting up a group blog with some friends and that has exposed me to new blogger. It is a massive improvement: so much easier, quicker and less fiddly. What on Earth is taking them so long getting it ready for use by active blogs?
It isn't like this blog is particularly huge. I've been going for about six months, not including the break for my Master's dissertation.
I don't really want to pay so I doubt I'll head off to Typepad any time soon, Wordpress looks fishy to me, but others certainly are and if this situation continues much longer I might reconsider; I'm prone to impulse buying. Old blogger is clunky, unreliable and behind the times in terms of features. That I'm being forced to make use of an inferior product because I'm an active and loyal user feels a bit unfair. Ah well.
It isn't like this blog is particularly huge. I've been going for about six months, not including the break for my Master's dissertation.
I don't really want to pay so I doubt I'll head off to Typepad any time soon, Wordpress looks fishy to me, but others certainly are and if this situation continues much longer I might reconsider; I'm prone to impulse buying. Old blogger is clunky, unreliable and behind the times in terms of features. That I'm being forced to make use of an inferior product because I'm an active and loyal user feels a bit unfair. Ah well.
Redwood on Tory Radio
I listened to my first Tory Radio 'broadcast' this evening. I'm not sure why I've never listened in before. I guess it's either that the colour scheme suggests to me a Cheeky plot or that I have a low tolerance for podcasts as I usually have music, TV or a film on while I'm reading blogs. Still, I am now sold and Tory Radio is firmly on the blogroll. The interview was done well and Redwood was great.
He was thoroughly positive about Cameron and made a very good, sound, case for the direction of Conservative policy. Apart from the environment his logic never sounded stretched. I'm sure that the cynics will write it off as careerism but it doesn't seem terribly credible to me that Redwood is the sort to bite his tongue in the hope of future advancement; he doesn't have the record of a careerist.
He was thoroughly positive about Cameron and made a very good, sound, case for the direction of Conservative policy. Apart from the environment his logic never sounded stretched. I'm sure that the cynics will write it off as careerism but it doesn't seem terribly credible to me that Redwood is the sort to bite his tongue in the hope of future advancement; he doesn't have the record of a careerist.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Interest Rates and Inflation
It would appear that the long run of slow interest rate rises may be coming to the end with the announcement of a market surprising rise from the MPC and the discovery of high inflation. This should be worrying for two big reasons. Any interest rate rise implies serious human costs in an economy with lots of personal debt; lost homes and bankruptcies. This interest rate rise is particularly problematic because all of the reasons that I cited in explaining why interest rate rises have been moderate up till now still apply. The manufacturing sector is still looking fragile and economic performance is still heavily dependent upon consumers keeping on spending.
Controlling inflation has become so imperative that these risks to economic performance have had to be taken. It is probably too early to start talking about stagflation and it is quite possible that this change in interest rates will bring inflation quickly under control. However, the Bank of England haven't been given much help in controlling inflation from fiscal policy for quite some time and if things don't go well we might be headed into dangerous territory. If Labour government ends in this kind of economic ruin again will the country forgive them?
Controlling inflation has become so imperative that these risks to economic performance have had to be taken. It is probably too early to start talking about stagflation and it is quite possible that this change in interest rates will bring inflation quickly under control. However, the Bank of England haven't been given much help in controlling inflation from fiscal policy for quite some time and if things don't go well we might be headed into dangerous territory. If Labour government ends in this kind of economic ruin again will the country forgive them?
Theodore Dalrymple on Doctor Johnson
Via Alykhan, I came across this article by Dalrymple on Samuel Johnson's claim to greatness a couple of days ago. It left me with a burning desire to fill the Doctor Johnson sized gap in my reading. As I had read Voltaire's Candide last summer I decided to read Rasselas and attempt to replicate Dalrymple's comparison.
Rasselas is an absolutely superb novel. The writing is beautiful without ever being ornamental. It has a philosophical depth to it thanks to an unwillingness to rely upon the outlandish tortures which give Candide force. This makes it a far more significant and lasting contribution as an inquiry into the human condition rather than a narrow rebuttal of a contemporary philosophy; in Dalrymple's words:
I'm actually somewhat confused as to why I was never recommended to read Johnson's work in my youth. His style is easy and the novel is a short one. The lack of popular appreciation which so shocks Dalrymple is, or at least was in my case, not a matter of choice but ignorance and I'm unsure of why those who know better allow that ignorance to persist.
Read Dalrymple's article and, if you haven't already been so lucky, acquaint yourself with Doctor Johnson's work.
Rasselas is an absolutely superb novel. The writing is beautiful without ever being ornamental. It has a philosophical depth to it thanks to an unwillingness to rely upon the outlandish tortures which give Candide force. This makes it a far more significant and lasting contribution as an inquiry into the human condition rather than a narrow rebuttal of a contemporary philosophy; in Dalrymple's words:
"Voltaire’s Candide, which has always had more renown than Johnson’s Rasselas, is nevertheless far the more superficial work, its irony crude and shallow compared with that of Rasselas. The surface similarities of the stories only underline their difference in depth. The one, Candide, attacks a philosophical doctrine; the other, Rasselas, addresses a human condition that is with us still. Portraits of the two authors reveal the difference in their character: Voltaire looks like an unregenerate cynic who wants to shock the world by sneering at it, while Johnson looks like a man determined to penetrate to the heart of human existence. The more serious man is also far the funnier."
I'm actually somewhat confused as to why I was never recommended to read Johnson's work in my youth. His style is easy and the novel is a short one. The lack of popular appreciation which so shocks Dalrymple is, or at least was in my case, not a matter of choice but ignorance and I'm unsure of why those who know better allow that ignorance to persist.
Read Dalrymple's article and, if you haven't already been so lucky, acquaint yourself with Doctor Johnson's work.
A Quick Study of English Customs and Rituals
If we are to get along in a multi-ethnic society others are going to have to accept our customs and way of life. In particular, there is a ritual that unites the English people, has been central to both our national glory and the personal development of generation upon generation.
Getting drunk and breaking things.
This video is a demonstration by a master of the art to some foreign students eager to learn the skills that built the Empire on which the sun never set:
Video via Jackart.
Getting drunk and breaking things.
This video is a demonstration by a master of the art to some foreign students eager to learn the skills that built the Empire on which the sun never set:
Video via Jackart.
Anyone want to be added to the Blogroll?
I'm going to update my blogroll tonight I think. There are a few dead blogs and lots that deserve links. However, I may well miss some deserving candidates so, if you would like a link and can or have put a reciprocal link in place, please let me know. If this process introduces me to some new blogs that would be dandy.
Blog Catfighting Returns
Whereas the last blogging catfight (Iain Dale vs. EU Referendum) had some semblance of substance and dignity this is just ridiculous.
I'm just so utterly unsurprised. 5th November is a gossip site. Have you ever heard anyone gossip in an intelligent and well rounded manner?
Of course not. That's why all the best newspapers are vaguely embarassed when breaking a gossip story and dress it up as a public morality crisis. If someone's raison d'etre is discussing Prescott's sex life why are you expecting a model of enlightened discourse?
Guido's response has been the masterful "look at my traffic puny mortals... your attacks only make me stronger". I think the fact that a spat can make a significant difference to his readership suggests that, in the blogosphere, we're all in the gutter in readership terms. It isn't something to brag about.
If you don't want to read what Guido writes then don't. I only read his stuff when he says something interesting enough to reach ConservativeHome because I don't really want to know about Tom Watson's gerbil fetish or whatever the latest irrelevant scandal is. In the end, there are plenty of thoughtful blogs on the internet. Find them. Read them. Link to me. Do something more constructive and trust that the rest of the blogosphere can and will judge for themselves.
I'm just so utterly unsurprised. 5th November is a gossip site. Have you ever heard anyone gossip in an intelligent and well rounded manner?
Of course not. That's why all the best newspapers are vaguely embarassed when breaking a gossip story and dress it up as a public morality crisis. If someone's raison d'etre is discussing Prescott's sex life why are you expecting a model of enlightened discourse?
Guido's response has been the masterful "look at my traffic puny mortals... your attacks only make me stronger". I think the fact that a spat can make a significant difference to his readership suggests that, in the blogosphere, we're all in the gutter in readership terms. It isn't something to brag about.
If you don't want to read what Guido writes then don't. I only read his stuff when he says something interesting enough to reach ConservativeHome because I don't really want to know about Tom Watson's gerbil fetish or whatever the latest irrelevant scandal is. In the end, there are plenty of thoughtful blogs on the internet. Find them. Read them. Link to me. Do something more constructive and trust that the rest of the blogosphere can and will judge for themselves.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
300 Year Maintenance for the Union - English Edition
At the English end what can be done which might restore the health of the Union? The crucial problem would seem to be the inequity of finance and political representation between Scotland and England. To a certain extent there is, therefore, no single political fix but there must, instead, be an increasing recognition that England cannot be relied upon to accept such inequities and that the cross border subsidy must be reduced and the borders of seats redrawn to make each MP represent a similar number of electors. However, that still leaves the big inequity of Celtic votes on English matters; the devolution hangover. I think this inequity is the most novel and, as such, the most significant cause of falls in support for the Union in England.
The solution that appears most likely to be adopted by the major parties is to have Scottish members not vote on matters relating exclusively to England. However, this would seem to pose huge problems to the operation of government via the House of Commons. For one thing it would make a Scottish Prime Minister's position extremely difficult as any role they play in huge areas of legislation is an imposition by a Scottish MP. Secondly, it removes the equality between MPs within the House of Commons which would seem necessary in its role as the sole source of ministerial talent. These problems are largely why I am now coming around to the idea of an English parliament.
I have had reservations over the idea of an English parliament; hence my being in the rare position of a British right wing blogger not a member of the Witanagemot club. Firstly, I think that it will have the same corrosive effect as other devolutions in weakening people's ties to the United Kingdom. Particularly if an English parliament does what the Scottish and Welsh parliaments have not and performs well. Secondly, I think that part of the problem in the Scottish parliament is that a minor parliament attracts those without the ambition or ability to succeed in Westminster and that a similar problem could occur in an English parliament. The quality of its legislative work may be lower than if that work is left in the hands of the current Houses of Parliament.
However, as I do not think the House of Commons can function with formal distinctions between members of different regions and I do not wish to see it drastically restructured to make such inequities less problematic I think an English parliament is the less bad response to the constitutional problem created by devolution. Also, I think that some of the problems I have discussed above would be less problematic in an English parliament. The effect of dulling loyalty to the union is less significant because the English have less of a problem with the dual identity of English and British than the Celts do and are therefore less likely to lose their attachment to the remaining United Kingdom institutions. The quality of the parliament is also likely to be higher as England is still a large nation and the issues an English parliament would discuss would therefore be less parochial relative to the work of the Commons.
So, an English parliament it is. I've taken a while to be converted to the idea but the case for it now seems almost unavoidable.
The solution that appears most likely to be adopted by the major parties is to have Scottish members not vote on matters relating exclusively to England. However, this would seem to pose huge problems to the operation of government via the House of Commons. For one thing it would make a Scottish Prime Minister's position extremely difficult as any role they play in huge areas of legislation is an imposition by a Scottish MP. Secondly, it removes the equality between MPs within the House of Commons which would seem necessary in its role as the sole source of ministerial talent. These problems are largely why I am now coming around to the idea of an English parliament.
I have had reservations over the idea of an English parliament; hence my being in the rare position of a British right wing blogger not a member of the Witanagemot club. Firstly, I think that it will have the same corrosive effect as other devolutions in weakening people's ties to the United Kingdom. Particularly if an English parliament does what the Scottish and Welsh parliaments have not and performs well. Secondly, I think that part of the problem in the Scottish parliament is that a minor parliament attracts those without the ambition or ability to succeed in Westminster and that a similar problem could occur in an English parliament. The quality of its legislative work may be lower than if that work is left in the hands of the current Houses of Parliament.
However, as I do not think the House of Commons can function with formal distinctions between members of different regions and I do not wish to see it drastically restructured to make such inequities less problematic I think an English parliament is the less bad response to the constitutional problem created by devolution. Also, I think that some of the problems I have discussed above would be less problematic in an English parliament. The effect of dulling loyalty to the union is less significant because the English have less of a problem with the dual identity of English and British than the Celts do and are therefore less likely to lose their attachment to the remaining United Kingdom institutions. The quality of the parliament is also likely to be higher as England is still a large nation and the issues an English parliament would discuss would therefore be less parochial relative to the work of the Commons.
So, an English parliament it is. I've taken a while to be converted to the idea but the case for it now seems almost unavoidable.
300 Year Maintenance for the Union - Scottish Edition
Most nations would make quite a fuss for the 300th anniversary of their founding but all we've seen in Britain is Labour politicians giving earnest speeches about shared values that I'm unconvinced we share more with the Scots than anyone else in the broad sphere of the West. The public seems to be marginally less enthusiastic for celebrating the Union than they are for St. Georges Day. Meanwhile, the SNP appears likely to emerge victorious in elections for the Scottish parliament. Polls on the subject of Scottish independence are giving quite unstable results, particularly in England, and there is rarely a majority in favour of Scotland leaving but the Union is still, clearly, in very poor health.
Why don't we give the SNP the referendum they want? Pledge to hold a referendum and to make the question a fair one but to campaign for a "no" vote. That way we can steal the SNP's thunder and finally have the independence debate in the open. Given the nightmares of forming a new state and the financial benefits Scotland takes from the Union a "no" vote seems probable. I think we can hope that people might be encouraged to think about what the United Kingdom means more broadly along with practical considerations of economies of scale in states. Perhaps the debate might bring an appreciation for its achievements and the scope of ambition it makes possible for its people. If the Union then goes on to win, as I expect it would, then it is difficult to imagine massive positive changes not emerging from the Union having a popular mandate.
If the vote were to go the wrong way after a proper debate then it might be preferable to the simmering resentment that characterises the Union at the moment. Most of the ill effects would be felt north of the border by those choosing to face them. It would be a shame but it is, perhaps, worth risking that, fairly remote, chance of an end to the Union for the possibility of a resolution in its favour.
Why don't we give the SNP the referendum they want? Pledge to hold a referendum and to make the question a fair one but to campaign for a "no" vote. That way we can steal the SNP's thunder and finally have the independence debate in the open. Given the nightmares of forming a new state and the financial benefits Scotland takes from the Union a "no" vote seems probable. I think we can hope that people might be encouraged to think about what the United Kingdom means more broadly along with practical considerations of economies of scale in states. Perhaps the debate might bring an appreciation for its achievements and the scope of ambition it makes possible for its people. If the Union then goes on to win, as I expect it would, then it is difficult to imagine massive positive changes not emerging from the Union having a popular mandate.
If the vote were to go the wrong way after a proper debate then it might be preferable to the simmering resentment that characterises the Union at the moment. Most of the ill effects would be felt north of the border by those choosing to face them. It would be a shame but it is, perhaps, worth risking that, fairly remote, chance of an end to the Union for the possibility of a resolution in its favour.
Cameron, Jackart and DK on Tax
Jackart is enthused by Cameron's promise to shrink the state:
I don't know why he thinks this is new. It has been exactly the same pledge since the leadership election expressed in almost identical terms. It is significantly different to the Labour party's expansion of the state's share of national income. It is the reason why someone interested in lower taxes should be voting Conservative.
He then goes on to get a little... exuberant... in his rejection of the UKIP:
Nice. This, rather predictably, got a reaction. Two parts of DKs response stand out:
The commitment is actually quite clear and unambiguous. It is imprecise thanks to the sensitivity of good fiscal policy to context. Also, it is a commitment that has been made repeatedly by both Cameron and Osborne on all manner of platforms.
Members of UKIP all faced a choice between trying to convince the rank and file Conservatives who could then change the leadership or setting up a separate party and trying to electorally blackmail us into changing policy. That they chose the latter option upsets Conservatives because it is an insult to our collective intelligence. It implies not just that we are wrong but that we are so incapable of being convinced of the right course of action that rational argument amongst allies has to be replaced by party political open warfare.
Conservatives also see, as Jackart makes clear, the UKIP doing its best to increase the chances of a Labour government. If the UKIP is as successful as in Nigel Farage's wet dreams the result will be a more statist, more pro-EU, Labour government in place of the Conservatives. It is entirely understandable that the possibility conservative government will be sacrificed on the altar of uncompromising radicalism angers Conservatives.
"Calle Me "Dave" Cameron has just secured my vote. Writing in the Telegraph:"It is why we are pledged to share the proceeds of economic growth between public services and lower taxes, thereby ensuring that over time the state takes a smaller share of national wealth."
If that is not a commitment to lower taxes, I don't know what is."
I don't know why he thinks this is new. It has been exactly the same pledge since the leadership election expressed in almost identical terms. It is significantly different to the Labour party's expansion of the state's share of national income. It is the reason why someone interested in lower taxes should be voting Conservative.
He then goes on to get a little... exuberant... in his rejection of the UKIP:
"You UKIP lot are an accessory to rape. Useful idiots helping our Cyclopean chancellor in his quest for total dominance."
Nice. This, rather predictably, got a reaction. Two parts of DKs response stand out:
"One vague promise to reduce taxes in a article designed to reassure the right of the party in a right wing paper does not a firm committment make."
The commitment is actually quite clear and unambiguous. It is imprecise thanks to the sensitivity of good fiscal policy to context. Also, it is a commitment that has been made repeatedly by both Cameron and Osborne on all manner of platforms.
"What is the Tory problem with UKIP? UKIP are promising the things that the Tories used to promise. They are therefore garnering the support of a great many traditional Tories. Why are you surprised or, as seems more fair, outraged?"
Members of UKIP all faced a choice between trying to convince the rank and file Conservatives who could then change the leadership or setting up a separate party and trying to electorally blackmail us into changing policy. That they chose the latter option upsets Conservatives because it is an insult to our collective intelligence. It implies not just that we are wrong but that we are so incapable of being convinced of the right course of action that rational argument amongst allies has to be replaced by party political open warfare.
Conservatives also see, as Jackart makes clear, the UKIP doing its best to increase the chances of a Labour government. If the UKIP is as successful as in Nigel Farage's wet dreams the result will be a more statist, more pro-EU, Labour government in place of the Conservatives. It is entirely understandable that the possibility conservative government will be sacrificed on the altar of uncompromising radicalism angers Conservatives.
Cameron in the Telegraph
Cameron's article in defence of the conservatism of the Conservative party he leads was a strong one. In particular, the section discussing Conservative policies should assuage the fears of those who worry there might be no significant difference between the two parties come election day. When you consider that the policy reviews have not even reported yet there is actually a fair amount of material. While they are not concrete policy plans they serve to illustrate the direction of the Conservative party going forward.
It appears to have panicked DK as his response is a bit disjointed:
Either DK is making an argument in favour of gilded cages or he is suggesting that Cameron is looking to force people to be Good Samaritans. The key is the comparison between social responsibility and state control; Cameron is discussing methods of avoiding the use of the heavy hand of the state.
Cameron doesn't run a "hug a hoodie" campaign. He argued, in a speech, that the problems of youth anti-social behaviour stemmed from social breakdown and that what these children lack is family love and support. This is a pretty conservative analysis.
That Cameron is currently discussing broad principles and ideas rather than precise policy is a horse that has been dead for some time and I'm a little dissapointed it is still being beaten. Forming policy slowly is a mark of taking policy formation seriously and giving it time rather than rushing out plans which are not properly thought through. Now is the time to set out broad principles, as a member of the UKIP surely DK can see that there is a fundamental difference between defining rights in UK law and having them defined, and enforced, in Europe?
The commitment was made during the leadership contest; that government should support marriage through the tax system. Why does a lack of detail make this commitment worthless?
This is actually a pretty clear commitment that at the end of a Tory term the proportion of the economy being consumed by the state will be 0.X of whatever it is when the Tories take over. The state will shrink. While exactly how much (X) and how is not decided it probably shouldn't be. Deciding economic policy years before the event when the state of the public finances and the broader economy is not known would be economically risky and politically dangerous. Now is the time to state direction rather than how far we might be able to travel.
Really? (Sorry, I'm just curious and there's at least some chance this post will get a response)
He then goes on to quote EU Referendum and the UKIP about how we can't leave the Social Chapter without the agreement of other members. This is a rather narrow way of looking at things. EU policy formation is a process of negotiation and if a priority of ours is no longer having to follow what was the Social Chapter then we may be able to secure agreement to that end. Particularly when the more integrationist states are accepting the idea that different nations may choose different levels of EU involvement (a multi-speed Europe).
I've rebutted the Serf's argument that it is impossible to reform the EU and I won't repeat myself now.
He then discusses the pledge to leave the EPP:
Forming a cross border political party takes time. In an ideal world it would be great to leave now but hurrying the process, making a mess of things and winding up forming a weaker alternative to the EPP than is possible if we take the time to get the new party right just leaves a weaker conservative voice in Europe.
Brown's position, in public at least, is that he wants to adopt the Euro when the economic conditions are right. "Davey-boy" does not want to adopt the Euro. Those two positions are rather different.
This is pretty hysterical. Cameron is arguing for applying the same, conservative, principles as Thatcher to modern problems. How on Earth is that statist?
That's actually the socialist caricature of Thatcherism and it is a shame that it has such a strong hold on the popular imagination. Striving to better the condition of yourself, your family and your community without state involvement is not selfish. That is what Thatcherism was trying to encourage.
Anyone with a political programme, including libertarians, has a vision of the good society. That good society may include the freedom to pursue your own vision of a good life.
I have some reservations over Conservative policy on a couple of issues, notably the NHS and the environment, but Cameron's leadership still offers the hope of a great conservative government.
It appears to have panicked DK as his response is a bit disjointed:
"Businesses, parents, and local communities must be given more responsibility. I believe in social responsibility, not state control.
As I have asked before, what if people don't want it? Are you going to make them have it?"
Either DK is making an argument in favour of gilded cages or he is suggesting that Cameron is looking to force people to be Good Samaritans. The key is the comparison between social responsibility and state control; Cameron is discussing methods of avoiding the use of the heavy hand of the state.
"Instead of simply accepting the political consensus of the time, as Blair did, I am challenging it.
How? With your marvellous "hug a hoodie" campaign?"
Cameron doesn't run a "hug a hoodie" campaign. He argued, in a speech, that the problems of youth anti-social behaviour stemmed from social breakdown and that what these children lack is family love and support. This is a pretty conservative analysis.
"Why do we need a Bill Of Rights, exactly? In what way will it be different from the Human Rights Act, precisely?"
That Cameron is currently discussing broad principles and ideas rather than precise policy is a horse that has been dead for some time and I'm a little dissapointed it is still being beaten. Forming policy slowly is a mark of taking policy formation seriously and giving it time rather than rushing out plans which are not properly thought through. Now is the time to set out broad principles, as a member of the UKIP surely DK can see that there is a fundamental difference between defining rights in UK law and having them defined, and enforced, in Europe?
"It is why I have made the strongest commitment to supporting the family and marriage that any Conservative leader has made for a generation.
What commitment? You have part-published a report written by Duncan-Smith; I haven't heard any concrete policy deriving from that report yet."
The commitment was made during the leadership contest; that government should support marriage through the tax system. Why does a lack of detail make this commitment worthless?
"It is why we are pledged to share the proceeds of economic growth between public services and lower taxes, thereby ensuring that over time the state takes a smaller share of national wealth.
Lower taxes? When? How much? What taxes (since the number of taxes that he can cut is partly controlled by the EU)?
Share the proceeds of growth? How much growth does there have to be before we see tax cuts rather than more money pissed into the public services? What if there is "not enough growth"?
What about tax simplification?What about that Flat Tax that you were so keen on? What about raising the Personal Tax Allowance to a decent level in order to take the poorest out of the tax system? Where are your actual policies, Dave? Where are these clear answers?"
This is actually a pretty clear commitment that at the end of a Tory term the proportion of the economy being consumed by the state will be 0.X of whatever it is when the Tories take over. The state will shrink. While exactly how much (X) and how is not decided it probably shouldn't be. Deciding economic policy years before the event when the state of the public finances and the broader economy is not known would be economically risky and politically dangerous. Now is the time to state direction rather than how far we might be able to travel.
"When I see Cameron's detailed policy, then I might rethink."
Really? (Sorry, I'm just curious and there's at least some chance this post will get a response)
He then goes on to quote EU Referendum and the UKIP about how we can't leave the Social Chapter without the agreement of other members. This is a rather narrow way of looking at things. EU policy formation is a process of negotiation and if a priority of ours is no longer having to follow what was the Social Chapter then we may be able to secure agreement to that end. Particularly when the more integrationist states are accepting the idea that different nations may choose different levels of EU involvement (a multi-speed Europe).
"Our new Movement for European Reform is a pan-European campaign to promote a positive vision of an outward-looking Europe rather than an inward-looking EU obsessed with its own bureaucracy.
Yes, yes, yes; we have heard all of this before from assorted politicians; when will you learn that the EU is not reformable? Both Strange Stuff and EU Serf have discussed, at length and recently, why this should be."
I've rebutted the Serf's argument that it is impossible to reform the EU and I won't repeat myself now.
He then discusses the pledge to leave the EPP:
"The pledge is, in any case, a stupid one to make. If the EPP is unsuitable for Conservatives now, then they should withdraw now. It may, in two years' time, actually be the most suitable grouping for the Tories to be in (unlikely, but you get the picture); in which case, leaving in two years would be fucking stupid, wouldn't it?"
Forming a cross border political party takes time. In an ideal world it would be great to leave now but hurrying the process, making a mess of things and winding up forming a weaker alternative to the EPP than is possible if we take the time to get the new party right just leaves a weaker conservative voice in Europe.
"And Brown wants to keep the pound as our currency: what, precisely, are you offering, Davey-boy?"
Brown's position, in public at least, is that he wants to adopt the Euro when the economic conditions are right. "Davey-boy" does not want to adopt the Euro. Those two positions are rather different.
"But these Conservative intellectual foundations are just the start. We must now apply them to the hopes and aspirations of people and families today, just as Mrs Thatcher applied Conservative principles to the challenges of the 1980s.
How about just fucking off and letting the families apply these principles themselves, you evil, statist cunt?"
This is pretty hysterical. Cameron is arguing for applying the same, conservative, principles as Thatcher to modern problems. How on Earth is that statist?
"The reduction of Thatcherism into a sort of laissez-faire libertarianism does not do justice to her record. She was animated by a vision of the good society – a vision obscured by decades of economic dirigisme and cultural relativism. The task she set herself was to restore not only personal liberty in economic matters, but also a sense of duty, respect and moral obligation in social matters.
Yup. That's why most people talk about the 80s in the same breath as "rampant greed"."
That's actually the socialist caricature of Thatcherism and it is a shame that it has such a strong hold on the popular imagination. Striving to better the condition of yourself, your family and your community without state involvement is not selfish. That is what Thatcherism was trying to encourage.
"I, too, am animated by a vision of the good society.
Oh, god. Dave, what if my vision of a "good society" is not the same as your vision of a "good society", eh? Are you going to force me to accept your vision? I suspect that the answer is, "yes"."
Anyone with a political programme, including libertarians, has a vision of the good society. That good society may include the freedom to pursue your own vision of a good life.
I have some reservations over Conservative policy on a couple of issues, notably the NHS and the environment, but Cameron's leadership still offers the hope of a great conservative government.
Unintended Consequences to the End of the United Kingdom
A little while ago I wrote a post lamenting the end of the United Kingdom. One of the arguments was an appeal to the conservative fear of unintended consequences
Trevor Phillips' article for the Telegraph yesterday argues that one of unintended consequences of fracturing the United Kingdom would be that the new nations would be ethnically defined and, hence, more difficult for new immigrants to become a part of. Certainly, most immigrants now tend to adopt the prefix British even if those the census describes as White British call themselves English or Scottish. However, I'm not sure the situation is as simple as Phillips is describing. There would seem to be two possible conclusions to a two or three state solution for the United Kingdom.
The first is the one that Phillips describes: nations defined as English, Scottish or Welsh, understood by the indigenous population to be the property of those of their ethnicity and less accepting of newcomers. In such a scenario immigrants might only be able to associate with their new national identity to the extent that they became more like the English, Scottish or Welsh and, therefore, feel the dilemma in choosing between their new and old cultures more acutely. The other, also plausible, possibility is that nations with a better sense of themselves would be easier to integrate into as immigrants might be more attracted to a better loved national identity and understand more easily what they need to do to integrate.
I don't think that any sufficently humble thinker can really claim to have a convincing case that either of these outcomes is much more likely than the other in the particular case of the 21st century UK fracturing. However, if you look at the rest of world it is hard to argue that Britain actually does a bad job of integrating newcomers and our various ethnic tribes get on relatively peacefully. The question we should be asking ourselves is clear; do we think we are wise enough to found a new state which would do better than the United Kingdom?
One thing I should finally mention is that the description Phillips offers for Britishness, that it asks you "to treat fellow citizens with respect and fairness, to share basic rules of conduct and to contribute to our common good", is desperately weak. I doubt that many civilised nations would say any different. A shared national identity has to be about something that people agree makes our national project special rather than a selection of close to universal homilies. In one of the very first posts on this blog I set out my vision of what that identity might be.
"If conservativism can be defined at all then it is the view that human reason is limited and that faced with tasks as complicated as building a state we would do better to rely on the accumulated knowledge of ages.
[...]
In the United Kingdom we have the state that played a serious part in defeating Napoleon, the Kaiser Wilhelm, Hitler and Stalin, built the world's largest empire, abolished slavery, set up the international economy through an early push for free trade, spread institutions and infrastructure around the world in the biggest overseas investment ever and provided a unique environment which incubated the first Industrial Revolution and modern economic growth. Now, it may be that we don't think this was dependent upon the United Kingdom so much as it was on England, luck, coal or some other quality. However, it seems far more plausible that the geographical security and cultural variety of the United Kingdom were a serious asset which there might be unintended consequences to losing."
Trevor Phillips' article for the Telegraph yesterday argues that one of unintended consequences of fracturing the United Kingdom would be that the new nations would be ethnically defined and, hence, more difficult for new immigrants to become a part of. Certainly, most immigrants now tend to adopt the prefix British even if those the census describes as White British call themselves English or Scottish. However, I'm not sure the situation is as simple as Phillips is describing. There would seem to be two possible conclusions to a two or three state solution for the United Kingdom.
The first is the one that Phillips describes: nations defined as English, Scottish or Welsh, understood by the indigenous population to be the property of those of their ethnicity and less accepting of newcomers. In such a scenario immigrants might only be able to associate with their new national identity to the extent that they became more like the English, Scottish or Welsh and, therefore, feel the dilemma in choosing between their new and old cultures more acutely. The other, also plausible, possibility is that nations with a better sense of themselves would be easier to integrate into as immigrants might be more attracted to a better loved national identity and understand more easily what they need to do to integrate.
I don't think that any sufficently humble thinker can really claim to have a convincing case that either of these outcomes is much more likely than the other in the particular case of the 21st century UK fracturing. However, if you look at the rest of world it is hard to argue that Britain actually does a bad job of integrating newcomers and our various ethnic tribes get on relatively peacefully. The question we should be asking ourselves is clear; do we think we are wise enough to found a new state which would do better than the United Kingdom?
One thing I should finally mention is that the description Phillips offers for Britishness, that it asks you "to treat fellow citizens with respect and fairness, to share basic rules of conduct and to contribute to our common good", is desperately weak. I doubt that many civilised nations would say any different. A shared national identity has to be about something that people agree makes our national project special rather than a selection of close to universal homilies. In one of the very first posts on this blog I set out my vision of what that identity might be.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Liam Fox is not Winston Churchill
I don't think Guido's idea that Liam Fox should quit and become a wilderness figure in order to return as saviour if Cameron fails is a particularly good one.
a) If the leadership did tell him to stop being silly in arguing for Poland and Hungary to be suspended from NATO for spending too little on defence they are entirely right. Poland has been a good ally contributing to many of our recent foreign interventions and neither country's main contribution to the alliance is their military budget.
b) In terms of his own personal ambition quitting now would suggest serious, party hurting, disloyalty which is usually death to dreams of high office. Churchill was a product of a different era.
c) "As it is they treat him like a mushroom (kept in the dark with plenty of fertiliser), his profile is kept deliberately low." I'm not sure this is true. We've seen big Conservative initiatives on Armed Forces conditions recently which would seem to increase the prominence of the Shadow Defence Minister.
a) If the leadership did tell him to stop being silly in arguing for Poland and Hungary to be suspended from NATO for spending too little on defence they are entirely right. Poland has been a good ally contributing to many of our recent foreign interventions and neither country's main contribution to the alliance is their military budget.
b) In terms of his own personal ambition quitting now would suggest serious, party hurting, disloyalty which is usually death to dreams of high office. Churchill was a product of a different era.
c) "As it is they treat him like a mushroom (kept in the dark with plenty of fertiliser), his profile is kept deliberately low." I'm not sure this is true. We've seen big Conservative initiatives on Armed Forces conditions recently which would seem to increase the prominence of the Shadow Defence Minister.
The Great Depression and the New Deal
After the gradual destruction of the conventional, Galbraithian view of what caused the Great Depression by Friedman, Bernanke, Sirkin and a host of other great twentieth century economists the right wing bandwagon is now moving on to what fixed it. In particular the New Deal is taking a hammering. Marginal Revolution has some great coverage. First, Alex Tabarrok:
The causes of the Great Depression are something I have studied at some length and it becomes increasingly clear the idea it was a matter of wildly irrational markets getting their comeuppance is increasingly hard to sustain. While I have not read into as much of the detail of the arguments surrounding the New Deal I think that people are right to be suspicious that policies which are so disastrous elsewhere worked so well in the thirties. I think that as the event was so traumatic and remains so iconic the conventional wisdom surrounding it can be an intimidating target for academic challenge.
Bryan Caplan puts an argument similar to Tabarrok's in rather robust terms by describing FDR as a much milder Mugabe in terms of economic policy. He defends his comparison like this:
The comparison is overblown but does make the point that scaring the rich may be popular but has awful effects on the economy by taking capital out of active use; whether in Zimbabwe or the United States.
It's an interesting discussion. The debate on the causes of and solution to the depression started in 1929 and I expect it'll still be going strong for some time to come.
"Imagine, increasing the power of unions to strike and raise wages during a time of mass strikes and mass unemployment. Imagine thinking that cartelizing whole industries thereby raising prices and reducing output could improve the economy. Not everything Roosevelt did was counterproductive - he did end prohibition (although in order to raise taxes) - but plenty was and worst of all was the uncertainty created by Roosevelt's vicious attacks on business."
The causes of the Great Depression are something I have studied at some length and it becomes increasingly clear the idea it was a matter of wildly irrational markets getting their comeuppance is increasingly hard to sustain. While I have not read into as much of the detail of the arguments surrounding the New Deal I think that people are right to be suspicious that policies which are so disastrous elsewhere worked so well in the thirties. I think that as the event was so traumatic and remains so iconic the conventional wisdom surrounding it can be an intimidating target for academic challenge.
Bryan Caplan puts an argument similar to Tabarrok's in rather robust terms by describing FDR as a much milder Mugabe in terms of economic policy. He defends his comparison like this:
"Think about it this way: Out of all the presidents the U.S. has ever had, which one had the scariest rhetoric and policies from the point of view of investors and the rich? As far as I can tell, Franklin Roosevelt is clearly at the top of the list by a wide margin. Who else is even in the running? Cousin Teddy? He was a lot more balanced, and the country wasn't in a crisis."
The comparison is overblown but does make the point that scaring the rich may be popular but has awful effects on the economy by taking capital out of active use; whether in Zimbabwe or the United States.
It's an interesting discussion. The debate on the causes of and solution to the depression started in 1929 and I expect it'll still be going strong for some time to come.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
West Brom Thievery
If this is some massive coincidence or a mistake then I apologise but at the moment it looks like West Brom blog has rather stolen one of my posts. Compare this from my blog on Friday:
With this from the West Brom Blog today:
There are far too many similiarities. Without crediting me this is just plagiarism. If Pete reads this then, please make it right; if he doesn't could someone please educate him about proper netiquette.
Update: Apparently this was an honest mistake. He read my article and then wrote his own and my turns of phrase had just stuck in his head. Fair play, mistakes happen, no hard feelings.
"However, Weyman Bennett, of Unite Against Fascism, said: “There should be no difference between a private racist opinion and a public racist opinion.”"
This is possibly the most disgustingly illiberal statement I have ever heard from someone supposedly within the political mainstream.
It is a direct assault on freedom of thought. The idea that private opinions are in any way equivalent to public incitement to racial hatred is a manifesto for witch hunts. This is a non-political figure who never openly stated her beliefs but could be hounded out of her job for being making the wrong political choice in private. To make people's private thoughts and beliefs, no matter how idiotic, a subject for public censure is the final death of meaningful freedom.
With this from the West Brom Blog today:
I was totally disgusted by UAF and shocked at the totally illiberal statements they made.
Weyman Bennett, of Unite Against Fascism, said: “There should be no difference between a private racist opinion and a public racist opinion”.
UAF are directly assaulting freedom of thought. The idea that private opinions are in any way equivalent to public incitement to racial hatred is a manifesto for the type of witch hunts UAF seem to so enjoy. Simone Clarke was not a political figure. She never openly stated her beliefs but was outed by the Guardian Newspaper. Yet she could be hounded out of her job for making the choice she made in private. To make people's private thoughts and beliefs, no matter how idiotic, a subject for public censure is the final death of meaningful freedom. The only thing UAF have demonstrated is the fact that they too are fascists, and that they lack the collective intelligence to realize it.
There are far too many similiarities. Without crediting me this is just plagiarism. If Pete reads this then, please make it right; if he doesn't could someone please educate him about proper netiquette.
Update: Apparently this was an honest mistake. He read my article and then wrote his own and my turns of phrase had just stuck in his head. Fair play, mistakes happen, no hard feelings.
A Big Clunking Fist?
Gordon Brown has somehow achieved a reputation for being a 'serious' thinker but his column for the Telegraph is another example of how he has failed to live up to that billing. His article is about the importance of Britishness but what are his proposed solutions?
More emphasis on British history; I'm pretty certain your average Tory four year old could have come up with this. An Institute for Britishness; isn't the "lets have an institute" approach always indicative of a lack of ideas? A permanent display of important British documents; doesn't the British Library already do this? And, finally, let's do something about the flag; no idea what.
Of course, if this article were a masterful exposition of the problems facing Britishness then a lack of a solution might be acceptable. There aren't any tried and tested routes to increasing national unity and not every article needs to answer that question. However, this piece was even more facile when dealing with the causes of a breakdown in Unionism. He decided to blame "some Conservative writers" who "now embrace anti-Unionist positions, from independence to "English votes for English laws" – a Trojan horse for separation". English votes for English laws is a, fairly moderate, response to the constitutional inequities of a system his government introduced and the idea of blaming conservatives for this is, as Iain points out, rather unimpressive. But shouldn't Brown be asking why conservatism, a movement which has been pro-Union through thick and thin for hundreds of years, is now reconsidering that position?
The answer would seem to be that the English are feeling put out. When looking at devolution they see the Celtic fringe gaining more autonomy while England gets attempts to fracture it into component parts. When looking at the public finances it sees public money raised in England flowing to the Celts. When looking at Westminster representation it sees English votes counting for less than those of the Scots or Welsh. The English also know that, despite all this subsidy and inequity in favour of the others, the other nations still regard the English as a yoke. A reaction of 'good riddance' is understandable.
English opinion feeds eventually into conservative opinion. That the Conservative party and the conservative commentariat are still almost uniformly unionist despite the English being 56% in favour of Scottish independence is a testament to how loyal to the unionist cause the movement is. Blaming that party and movement for the decline of Unionism is shallow and unimpressive.
Perhaps having been near the top of British politics for so long has meant that people had to look for qualities in Brown to explain his success despite a lack of charisma. I think that substance may have been assumed to fill this gap in our ability to explain a success that was probably more about being in the right place at the right time, both in inheriting a superb economic legacy and coming of political age when Blair led the Labour party to electoral sucess. It seems clearer and clearer he will be a dismal Prime Minister.
More emphasis on British history; I'm pretty certain your average Tory four year old could have come up with this. An Institute for Britishness; isn't the "lets have an institute" approach always indicative of a lack of ideas? A permanent display of important British documents; doesn't the British Library already do this? And, finally, let's do something about the flag; no idea what.
Of course, if this article were a masterful exposition of the problems facing Britishness then a lack of a solution might be acceptable. There aren't any tried and tested routes to increasing national unity and not every article needs to answer that question. However, this piece was even more facile when dealing with the causes of a breakdown in Unionism. He decided to blame "some Conservative writers" who "now embrace anti-Unionist positions, from independence to "English votes for English laws" – a Trojan horse for separation". English votes for English laws is a, fairly moderate, response to the constitutional inequities of a system his government introduced and the idea of blaming conservatives for this is, as Iain points out, rather unimpressive. But shouldn't Brown be asking why conservatism, a movement which has been pro-Union through thick and thin for hundreds of years, is now reconsidering that position?
The answer would seem to be that the English are feeling put out. When looking at devolution they see the Celtic fringe gaining more autonomy while England gets attempts to fracture it into component parts. When looking at the public finances it sees public money raised in England flowing to the Celts. When looking at Westminster representation it sees English votes counting for less than those of the Scots or Welsh. The English also know that, despite all this subsidy and inequity in favour of the others, the other nations still regard the English as a yoke. A reaction of 'good riddance' is understandable.
English opinion feeds eventually into conservative opinion. That the Conservative party and the conservative commentariat are still almost uniformly unionist despite the English being 56% in favour of Scottish independence is a testament to how loyal to the unionist cause the movement is. Blaming that party and movement for the decline of Unionism is shallow and unimpressive.
Perhaps having been near the top of British politics for so long has meant that people had to look for qualities in Brown to explain his success despite a lack of charisma. I think that substance may have been assumed to fill this gap in our ability to explain a success that was probably more about being in the right place at the right time, both in inheriting a superb economic legacy and coming of political age when Blair led the Labour party to electoral sucess. It seems clearer and clearer he will be a dismal Prime Minister.
Browne leaves BP
From Times Online.
With a share price performance like that Browne is quite an act to follow. BP is promoting from within which can signify a governance problem when a company looks short of ideas but with BP performing so well there seems little reason to worry about the possibility of the company becoming too insular.
Appointing the head of Oil Exploration seems a sensible move if it indicates a renewed focus on the exploration side of the business. With more and more stocks of oil subject to serious security concerns finding new sources is increasingly paramount and any additional focus on this challenge has to be a good thing. The more 'laid back' personal manner seems relatively unimportant by comparison.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Unite Against Thought Crime
"However, Weyman Bennett, of Unite Against Fascism, said: “There should be no difference between a private racist opinion and a public racist opinion.”"
This is possibly the most disgustingly illiberal statement I have ever heard from someone supposedly within the political mainstream.
It is a direct assault on freedom of thought. The idea that private opinions are in any way equivalent to public incitement to racial hatred is a manifesto for witch hunts. This is a non-political figure who never openly stated her beliefs but could be hounded out of her job for being making the wrong political choice in private. To make people's private thoughts and beliefs, no matter how idiotic, a subject for public censure is the final death of meaningful freedom.
This Unite Against Fascism (UAF) position is also rampantly counter productive. It achieves the remarkable in making members of the BNP liberal martyrs, gives their claims to fighting an establishment conspiracy credibility and upsets broad swathes of the public. It looks almost certain to me that UAF is contributing to the rise of the BNP.
Any mainstream bodies affiliated to UAF who believe they are helping to maintain liberal democracy should sever any ties they have to the organisation.
David Cameron is The Evil Lord Xenu
Apparently the Labour Party is taking money from Scientology front groups. Classy. As both this, priceless, clip from South Park and Dave's, rather cautious, analysis demonstrate these are some seriously nutty people. Then again, at least it dilutes Labour's reliance upon the unions.
This is why whoever is responsible for the Labour party's funding scandal deserves serious sanction. By making donating to the Labour party socially disreputable they force the party to either accept donations from those without a reputation to risk or return to being the political arm of the union movement. This is not an enviable choice.
This is why whoever is responsible for the Labour party's funding scandal deserves serious sanction. By making donating to the Labour party socially disreputable they force the party to either accept donations from those without a reputation to risk or return to being the political arm of the union movement. This is not an enviable choice.
TUConomics
Brilliant quote from Jackart:
I think it's possibly worse than irrelevant; Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the Texas Christian University might be a more apt comparison.
"Talking about yesterdays surprise rate rise by the bank of England,Adam Lent, head of economics at the Trades Union Congress, said the decision "smacks of panic".
Head of Economics at the TUC? A post about as relevant as Lead Ballerina in The Parachute Regiment..."
I think it's possibly worse than irrelevant; Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the Texas Christian University might be a more apt comparison.
Terrorism in Athens
Apparently an RPG round has been fired at the front of the US Embassy in Athens. From the description in the BBC report, "just above the US emblem", it sounds to me like they may have been trying to blow the emblem off.
The big question now is whether this is the work of a successor to the, disbanded, 17 November Marxist group which has attacked US targets in the past, as well as killing British military attache Stephen Saunders, or the work of international Islamist terrorists. It was a wrong call on a similar question that led to Jose Maria Aznar's departure from power after the Madrid bombings. The police are making no predictions so far.
From my, admittedly limited, knowledge of how these things work this sounds like a small scale domestic terrorist group rather than the, rather bloodier, work of Islamist terrorists. Choosing to attack just before six in the morning with a single RPG was never going to produce the gruesome images the Jihadis look for.
Now the task is to find whoever did this. 17 November managed to operate for almost thirty years, from 1975, without a single arrest before their group quickly unravelled in 2002. If this is the start of a similar campaign and the Greeks do a similarly poor job in tracking down those responsible then we'll be hearing stories of terrorist attacks in Greece for some time to come.
The big question now is whether this is the work of a successor to the, disbanded, 17 November Marxist group which has attacked US targets in the past, as well as killing British military attache Stephen Saunders, or the work of international Islamist terrorists. It was a wrong call on a similar question that led to Jose Maria Aznar's departure from power after the Madrid bombings. The police are making no predictions so far.
From my, admittedly limited, knowledge of how these things work this sounds like a small scale domestic terrorist group rather than the, rather bloodier, work of Islamist terrorists. Choosing to attack just before six in the morning with a single RPG was never going to produce the gruesome images the Jihadis look for.
Now the task is to find whoever did this. 17 November managed to operate for almost thirty years, from 1975, without a single arrest before their group quickly unravelled in 2002. If this is the start of a similar campaign and the Greeks do a similarly poor job in tracking down those responsible then we'll be hearing stories of terrorist attacks in Greece for some time to come.
Gordon Brown and the Scots
It is pretty widely held that being Scottish is a handicap for Gordon Brown in securing the English vote. This should be at least partially compensated for by enthusing Scottish voters, shouldn't it? That would certainly be the logic in the US where southern John Edwards, for example, was supposed to offer the chance of delivering a Republican safe seat.
However, it seems implausible in Scotland for two reasons. Firstly, most Scottish seats are Labour's to lose. The key Conservative-Labour marginals are in England. Any influence Brown might have in helping to beat the SNP or Liberal Democrats is of less electoral importance than his impact in the South though still significant.
More importantly I have the vague impression that although Scots are often very nationalistic they aren't exactly overly keen on each other. They're a contentious people and express their nationalism more in a disdain for other nationalities, in particular the English, than in some great enthusiasm for their own.
At a time of such nationalistic fervour they also might see a Scot running to be leader of the United Kingdom as something of a turncoat. Especially if he constantly celebrates how British he is in an effort to get on the good side of the English. In fact, I imagine they might find an actual Englishman far less offensive.
I guess we'll see.
However, it seems implausible in Scotland for two reasons. Firstly, most Scottish seats are Labour's to lose. The key Conservative-Labour marginals are in England. Any influence Brown might have in helping to beat the SNP or Liberal Democrats is of less electoral importance than his impact in the South though still significant.
More importantly I have the vague impression that although Scots are often very nationalistic they aren't exactly overly keen on each other. They're a contentious people and express their nationalism more in a disdain for other nationalities, in particular the English, than in some great enthusiasm for their own.
At a time of such nationalistic fervour they also might see a Scot running to be leader of the United Kingdom as something of a turncoat. Especially if he constantly celebrates how British he is in an effort to get on the good side of the English. In fact, I imagine they might find an actual Englishman far less offensive.
I guess we'll see.
Tory Finances
I think the news that the Tories are managing to raise far more money than normal and are in a fine financial position is even better news than the obvious election advantage it gives over a financially moribund Labour party. It is good news because of what it signals about Cameron's approach to leading the Conservative Party.
A new Conservative leader looking at the fortunes of his predecessors might well come to the conclusion that the best course of action is to spend money now as, in all likelihood, the crunch will come under some future leader. When the crunch comes do whatever is necessary to keep the party afloat but nothing more. By contrast, Cameron has the Tories in excellent financial shape. This, like the lengthy policy reviews, makes the charge that Cameron is interested only in short term poll ratings rather than the long term health of the party ring hollow. It is reassuring.
Less importantly, the difference between the financial health of the Labour and Conservative parties is supposed to tell us that Brown can't call a snap election. I doubt he would anyway. Snap elections are a gambling man's game and Brown is far too cautious; that's the lesson of the pre-budget report.
A new Conservative leader looking at the fortunes of his predecessors might well come to the conclusion that the best course of action is to spend money now as, in all likelihood, the crunch will come under some future leader. When the crunch comes do whatever is necessary to keep the party afloat but nothing more. By contrast, Cameron has the Tories in excellent financial shape. This, like the lengthy policy reviews, makes the charge that Cameron is interested only in short term poll ratings rather than the long term health of the party ring hollow. It is reassuring.
Less importantly, the difference between the financial health of the Labour and Conservative parties is supposed to tell us that Brown can't call a snap election. I doubt he would anyway. Snap elections are a gambling man's game and Brown is far too cautious; that's the lesson of the pre-budget report.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
We need to track this boy down and give him his luckiest boy in America medal right away...
"McMINNVILLE, Tenn. — A former teacher serving an eight-year prison sentence for having sex with a 13-year-old student agreed Wednesday to serve two more years for sending him nude photos of herself."
Globe and Mail.Com
This story really earned its own South Park episode.
Sanctimonious Hippy Garbage Strikes Again
Sue Blackmore is terribly proud. She's given up flying. In fact, she's so proud that she has used a Guardian Unlimited piece to tell us all about how enlightened she is.
How can she be so selfless and brave? How can someone write those two paragraphs without cringing at their own self-satisfaction and retreating from the keyboard?
I think its interesting that she's going to stop "flying for work". So she'll still be joining the EasyJet crowd to Ibiza but conferences in the States are off limits. Hardly puritan self-denial is it?
Firstly, disposable drinks containers on planes probably aren't wasteful. Imagine a plane carrying a full load of non-disposable cutlery, cups etc. The extra weight and space used would add far more to the pollution footprint of the flight.
Secondly, if you don't want a stirrer, cup for stirrer or cup just tell the flight staff. I'm sure they can adjust their service and just give you the can. That kind of step is a little too practical, though, isn't it? Not quite the lifestyle statement you get with giving up flying.
Thirdly, between that Guardian article and her website I count at least four shades of hairdye going into her statement of hippy identity. She hasn't got rid of the purer examples of waste in her life.
Finally, a large part of her career has been parapsychology. Can she acknowledge that, while her "work" trips might be a waste of time and airfuel, other business travel is quite worthwhile?
I've stayed in quite a few decent business hotels recently and they have all been quite clear about the rules: to avoid this kind of waste leave the towels on the floor if you want them washed and on the rack if you don't. Evidently she was too blinded by Guardianista rage to be able to notice such simple measures.
That's mostly because we're travelling a lot further. Flying is often, per mile, pretty efficient increasingly as high oil prices create a powerful incentive for airlines to increase efficiency. As such, this isn't waste but a price we pay for seeing new countries and new people.
It is telling that she gives no thought, in her article, to the benefit side of the cost/benefit calculation of flying. First, many flights are a chance for people to experience different cultures and peoples. The Guardian has become the paper of the modern little Englander mentality unwilling to see the value of people getting out in the world. Sure, some flights don't achieve this objective but the pure party trip to a hot country to get drunk is a caricature. Most will, at least to some extent, come home with a better understanding of how things are outside Britain and will be better people for it.
Second, conferences, whether academic, political or business, are important in enabling an international dialogue on important issues. The most likely outcome of more British people adopting Blackmore's decision to "choose conferences closer to home" is that more people will have to fly from foreign countries; no decrease in flying or emissions. If this movement is taken up worldwide it will mean people from different nations no longer talking, face to face, with each other. Do we really want people from different parts of the world talking to each other less?
This article was a fine example of what is wrong with the modern environmental movement.
"How could someone be that selfless and brave? I knew I couldn't. I spend my life flying around the world giving lectures and going to conferences. It's my job. It's fun, it's prestigious, it's exciting. Anyway, one person's actions are a drop in the ocean to the scale of the problem of climate change, aren't they?
Yet two years on I find I have made that same decision myself. As of the start of 2007 I will make only the trips I've already booked (the US this month and Basel next) and after that I won't be flying for work any more."
How can she be so selfless and brave? How can someone write those two paragraphs without cringing at their own self-satisfaction and retreating from the keyboard?
I think its interesting that she's going to stop "flying for work". So she'll still be joining the EasyJet crowd to Ibiza but conferences in the States are off limits. Hardly puritan self-denial is it?
"This decision, that I once thought impossible, really made itself. I was sitting one day in a huge 747 when, before my lunch, served in a disposable plastic tray, the steward brought me gin in a disposable bottle, tonic in a throwaway can, a plastic cup to drink it out of and, for good measure, a spare plastic cup in which to put the little plastic stirring stick.
I realised that it's not just the fuel the plane uses but the whole crazy, wasteful enterprise of travelling the world."
Firstly, disposable drinks containers on planes probably aren't wasteful. Imagine a plane carrying a full load of non-disposable cutlery, cups etc. The extra weight and space used would add far more to the pollution footprint of the flight.
Secondly, if you don't want a stirrer, cup for stirrer or cup just tell the flight staff. I'm sure they can adjust their service and just give you the can. That kind of step is a little too practical, though, isn't it? Not quite the lifestyle statement you get with giving up flying.
Thirdly, between that Guardian article and her website I count at least four shades of hairdye going into her statement of hippy identity. She hasn't got rid of the purer examples of waste in her life.
Finally, a large part of her career has been parapsychology. Can she acknowledge that, while her "work" trips might be a waste of time and airfuel, other business travel is quite worthwhile?
"There's not only the plastic, the bottled water, and the ludicrous practice of duty-free alcohol, but the luxury hotels I'm lucky enough to be put in, with all those unnecessarily frequently washed sheets and bright white towels."
I've stayed in quite a few decent business hotels recently and they have all been quite clear about the rules: to avoid this kind of waste leave the towels on the floor if you want them washed and on the rack if you don't. Evidently she was too blinded by Guardianista rage to be able to notice such simple measures.
"We all know that, for most journeys, flying puts far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than would driving somewhere or going there by train."
That's mostly because we're travelling a lot further. Flying is often, per mile, pretty efficient increasingly as high oil prices create a powerful incentive for airlines to increase efficiency. As such, this isn't waste but a price we pay for seeing new countries and new people.
It is telling that she gives no thought, in her article, to the benefit side of the cost/benefit calculation of flying. First, many flights are a chance for people to experience different cultures and peoples. The Guardian has become the paper of the modern little Englander mentality unwilling to see the value of people getting out in the world. Sure, some flights don't achieve this objective but the pure party trip to a hot country to get drunk is a caricature. Most will, at least to some extent, come home with a better understanding of how things are outside Britain and will be better people for it.
Second, conferences, whether academic, political or business, are important in enabling an international dialogue on important issues. The most likely outcome of more British people adopting Blackmore's decision to "choose conferences closer to home" is that more people will have to fly from foreign countries; no decrease in flying or emissions. If this movement is taken up worldwide it will mean people from different nations no longer talking, face to face, with each other. Do we really want people from different parts of the world talking to each other less?
This article was a fine example of what is wrong with the modern environmental movement.
Stumbling and Mumbling on the Undeserving Poor
Stumbling and Mumbling has stumbled across Celebrity Big Brother and is so alarmed by the insult to Darwin that is Jackiey Budden that he's calling for global redistribution. After all, none of us 'earned' being English so why do we deserve the wealth that comes with it? From reading his account she does sound a truly awful woman but that doesn't necessarily create a case for redistribution.
This is an application of the principle of moral luck which avoids the thorny question of free will. However, it still has to answer to the question of whether the proposed redistribution can be justified on efficiency grounds. International redistribution is sometimes effective but often desperately ineffective or actively counterproductive. Spending within our own borders is far easier to control and direct. Bauer's criticisms of the effects of foreign aid imply that there are limits on the extent to which our money can improve the lives of those in foreign countries. Would we be just as likely to waste our money encouraging Third World corruption as we would looking after people like Jackiey Budden?
We then return to the idea of the state as a social contract. For all Jackiey Budden's awfulness she is a party to that contract and is subject to the accompanying laws. If her awfulness manifests itself as something beyond the pale, something criminal, she can be punished. In return for setting people these basic standards we guarantee them a material standard of living. As such a contract cannot be enforced on those living abroad they may be less deserving despite being better people.
I think that the problem of Jackiey Budden is better solved via the idea floated by Dwight Lee on TCS Daily. Allow people to sell their citizenship and it seems close to certain that someone who is so underutilising the advantages of being British will wind up selling in a fit of shallowness. We could trade her for a more productive foreigner.
This is an application of the principle of moral luck which avoids the thorny question of free will. However, it still has to answer to the question of whether the proposed redistribution can be justified on efficiency grounds. International redistribution is sometimes effective but often desperately ineffective or actively counterproductive. Spending within our own borders is far easier to control and direct. Bauer's criticisms of the effects of foreign aid imply that there are limits on the extent to which our money can improve the lives of those in foreign countries. Would we be just as likely to waste our money encouraging Third World corruption as we would looking after people like Jackiey Budden?
We then return to the idea of the state as a social contract. For all Jackiey Budden's awfulness she is a party to that contract and is subject to the accompanying laws. If her awfulness manifests itself as something beyond the pale, something criminal, she can be punished. In return for setting people these basic standards we guarantee them a material standard of living. As such a contract cannot be enforced on those living abroad they may be less deserving despite being better people.
I think that the problem of Jackiey Budden is better solved via the idea floated by Dwight Lee on TCS Daily. Allow people to sell their citizenship and it seems close to certain that someone who is so underutilising the advantages of being British will wind up selling in a fit of shallowness. We could trade her for a more productive foreigner.
Sir John Fielding and Guantanamo
Gracchi offers a review of new work by Professor John Beattie on Sir John Fielding's contribution to the British justice system and the contemporary response to the challenge his changes posed to liberty.
I think that the emphasis on new rights here is important. Too often people are distinctly unimaginative in these debates and tend to resolve the question down to old rights versus new threats. The reality is often that the old liberties are no longer useful or appropriate in changing circumstances and this is the reason they are no longer protecting the vulnerable from overzealous attempts to confront new threats.
Guantanamo seems a prime example. A common refrain is that they should be afforded the protections of the Geneva Protocols. However, these protocols were never designed to be granted to anyone the military happened to pick up. A few of the conditions placed upon gaining Geneva protection:
Geneva protection is, therefore, the reward to staying within the social contract which is the rules of war. If it is granted to those who pay no heed to its laws then that social contract can be expected to break down.
Perhaps more convincingly for those who want to see extra protection for inmates there is little imperative to quickly try and release those captured on the field of battle. This is for fairly obvious practical reasons; do you think we could have assembled a case against many of the PoWs we held during WW2? The basic environment required for evidence gathering is not present. We also often do not have the right to try them merely for being the soldiers of our enemy or committing crimes in foreign countries.
Instead Prisoners of War are prosecuted or released at the end of the war (except in exchange situations but these are matters of diplomacy rather than law). However, this is clearly not going to be a humane solution in a War on Terror which is unlikely to end so neatly. Prisoner of War status could well be a recipe for indefinite detention for many of those captured.
Equally, domestic law cannot apply to those at Guantanamo because, although they are not Prisoners of War, the same restrictions on the ability to gather evidence and prosecute a trial are present. Many of these people, under the standard of domestic law, should not be held but it is utterly unrealistic to hold a state fighting a war and dealing with foreign enemies to the same standard it is expected to afford its own citizens. This is neither true to the historical norm nor conducive to the slightest military efficacy.
What is clearly needed is some new liberties which we grant to those who do not deserve the honour of the status of Prisoners of War but do deserve some basic human dignity. The failure of the Bush administration, as I have noted before, is that it has made no attempt at creating new liberties but has, instead, ignored the problem. Those who condemn the Bush administration for its record on foreign prisoners should not pretend that its failure has been to defend existing liberties but that it has not done the work of an enlightened government in defining new ones.
"Its interesting as a last thought to reflect upon what this says about our current system- the Prime Minister and Head of the Metropolitan Police (chief police officer in the UK) continually tell us that we see new threats and need new ways to prosecute and police those threats. It may be that at the same time, just as in the eighteenth century, we as private citizens and therefore potential defendents need new rights to counter new prosecutions- perhaps in matters like data protection you can already see both trends taking place, government now holds a great deal more information about us and we now have rights to see that information."
I think that the emphasis on new rights here is important. Too often people are distinctly unimaginative in these debates and tend to resolve the question down to old rights versus new threats. The reality is often that the old liberties are no longer useful or appropriate in changing circumstances and this is the reason they are no longer protecting the vulnerable from overzealous attempts to confront new threats.
Guantanamo seems a prime example. A common refrain is that they should be afforded the protections of the Geneva Protocols. However, these protocols were never designed to be granted to anyone the military happened to pick up. A few of the conditions placed upon gaining Geneva protection:
- That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates.
- That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (there are limited exceptions to this among countries who observe the 1977 Protocol I).
- That of carrying arms openly
- That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
Geneva protection is, therefore, the reward to staying within the social contract which is the rules of war. If it is granted to those who pay no heed to its laws then that social contract can be expected to break down.
Perhaps more convincingly for those who want to see extra protection for inmates there is little imperative to quickly try and release those captured on the field of battle. This is for fairly obvious practical reasons; do you think we could have assembled a case against many of the PoWs we held during WW2? The basic environment required for evidence gathering is not present. We also often do not have the right to try them merely for being the soldiers of our enemy or committing crimes in foreign countries.
Instead Prisoners of War are prosecuted or released at the end of the war (except in exchange situations but these are matters of diplomacy rather than law). However, this is clearly not going to be a humane solution in a War on Terror which is unlikely to end so neatly. Prisoner of War status could well be a recipe for indefinite detention for many of those captured.
Equally, domestic law cannot apply to those at Guantanamo because, although they are not Prisoners of War, the same restrictions on the ability to gather evidence and prosecute a trial are present. Many of these people, under the standard of domestic law, should not be held but it is utterly unrealistic to hold a state fighting a war and dealing with foreign enemies to the same standard it is expected to afford its own citizens. This is neither true to the historical norm nor conducive to the slightest military efficacy.
What is clearly needed is some new liberties which we grant to those who do not deserve the honour of the status of Prisoners of War but do deserve some basic human dignity. The failure of the Bush administration, as I have noted before, is that it has made no attempt at creating new liberties but has, instead, ignored the problem. Those who condemn the Bush administration for its record on foreign prisoners should not pretend that its failure has been to defend existing liberties but that it has not done the work of an enlightened government in defining new ones.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
You think you're not a Little Englander and then...
...you come across a tool to plot the countries you've visited via Marginal Revolution and realise just how insular you are.
It was while I was in Vancouver for Worlds that I realised that it was the first time I'd seen the Pacific (my trip to Russia was to Lake Baikal and my trip to China to Beijing); it's a big ocean to miss in twenty three years. But look, I still haven't even made it below the equator. I might as well write "Here be Dragons" on Latin America and Africa. How pathetic!
Create your own Visited Countries Map
I think things will improve as I get older but at the moment even my European coverage is looking a bit shaky. How dissapointing.
It was while I was in Vancouver for Worlds that I realised that it was the first time I'd seen the Pacific (my trip to Russia was to Lake Baikal and my trip to China to Beijing); it's a big ocean to miss in twenty three years. But look, I still haven't even made it below the equator. I might as well write "Here be Dragons" on Latin America and Africa. How pathetic!
Create your own Visited Countries Map
I think things will improve as I get older but at the moment even my European coverage is looking a bit shaky. How dissapointing.
A really bad reason to vote Labour
Dave 'Red Dave' Cole is enthused by Alistair Darling's promise to better enforce the minimum wage. Three things to note:
Firstly, here's Greg Mankiw with a quick round up of the strong evidence showing that the minimum wage depresses employment. Dave's response to this will be simple: "But unemployment is low". This rather misses the point that the minimum wage will do its worst in times of economic misfortune and among a vulnerable minority of the unskilled (witness the Banlieue's in France) and that its effect can, in the short term, be masked by wider changes in our economic fortunes (i.e. the beautiful economy the Tories left Labour). Both theory and practice suggest that the outcome of setting or increasing a minimum wage is to force people to live unemployed, supported by the state, instead of getting on the ladder and providing some share of their own income.
Secondly, I think that the Labour party, which takes crowds of unpaid interns to do what would, in other circumstances, be described as "work", might want to take a look at its own policies before starting a crackdown.
Finally, to respond directly to Dave's point that we can avoid "the days under the Tories when it was perfectly acceptable for people to have to work for a pound an hour". This is akin to someone from Saudi Arabia saying that adultery is perfectly acceptable in the West. It isn't but we don't ban everything that isn't perfectly acceptable if the result of a ban will be illiberal and/or counterproductive. Under the Tories few people would have worked for under a pound an hour because they could usually make more through claiming benefits. Equally, there isn't an unlimited supply of people willing to work for a pound an hour and, therefore, the idea that the minimum wage is the only thing keeping people's wages above one pound an hour is absurd; even unskilled labour is competed for by employers to a certain extent.
In the end, the minimum wage should be a mechanism to ensure greater returns to low paid work because we want these people to be better off. We can either do this by making their labour artificially expensive, the minimum wage, which punishes those employers who employ the unskilled and therefore hurts employment of those we most want to be keeping in work, or we can spread the cost more widely through a negative income tax of some kind.
Firstly, here's Greg Mankiw with a quick round up of the strong evidence showing that the minimum wage depresses employment. Dave's response to this will be simple: "But unemployment is low". This rather misses the point that the minimum wage will do its worst in times of economic misfortune and among a vulnerable minority of the unskilled (witness the Banlieue's in France) and that its effect can, in the short term, be masked by wider changes in our economic fortunes (i.e. the beautiful economy the Tories left Labour). Both theory and practice suggest that the outcome of setting or increasing a minimum wage is to force people to live unemployed, supported by the state, instead of getting on the ladder and providing some share of their own income.
Secondly, I think that the Labour party, which takes crowds of unpaid interns to do what would, in other circumstances, be described as "work", might want to take a look at its own policies before starting a crackdown.
Finally, to respond directly to Dave's point that we can avoid "the days under the Tories when it was perfectly acceptable for people to have to work for a pound an hour". This is akin to someone from Saudi Arabia saying that adultery is perfectly acceptable in the West. It isn't but we don't ban everything that isn't perfectly acceptable if the result of a ban will be illiberal and/or counterproductive. Under the Tories few people would have worked for under a pound an hour because they could usually make more through claiming benefits. Equally, there isn't an unlimited supply of people willing to work for a pound an hour and, therefore, the idea that the minimum wage is the only thing keeping people's wages above one pound an hour is absurd; even unskilled labour is competed for by employers to a certain extent.
In the end, the minimum wage should be a mechanism to ensure greater returns to low paid work because we want these people to be better off. We can either do this by making their labour artificially expensive, the minimum wage, which punishes those employers who employ the unskilled and therefore hurts employment of those we most want to be keeping in work, or we can spread the cost more widely through a negative income tax of some kind.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Where are all the young Conservatives coming from?
There is a very interesting post over on ConservativeHome's CF Diary (for some reason the thing isn't credited so I have no idea who writes it; identify yourself if you read this) about an increasing conservatism among the young. It cites a recent survey for the Scouts Association and an older one for Bliss Magazine and the Social Attitudes survey of 2004 both of which highlighted what appears to be conservative attitudes. I would add this 2003 LSE study, for that year's Social Attitude's study, which found young people less willing to pay for increased taxes to secure higher spending.
Despite having now left university I am still, at 23, comfortably in the Conservative Future age range and, as such, feel entitled to comment on what might be driving an increased conservatism among younger people.
1) A Decline in the Social Stigma attached to Conservatism
I think that the social stigma attached to being an evil, heartless, Tory is more important to young people. Without careers and the like to hang their social status on young people are generally more careful about anything which might endanger their hard won social standing. There would seem to be a few factors working to undermine the social stigma around conservatism.
Firstly, any ideology which is very electorally successful, as the social democrats are at the moment, will necessarily be the party of a lot of voters and these voters will often be those that young people think little of; to look at the Scouts Association survey that would be the likes of Pete Doherty and other assorted trendies of the sort that backed Blair in 97. Related to this is that the socialists can no longer sustain the idealism of opposition and have had to do unpopular things, such as the Iraq war, and now are forced to argue at the realist level of conservatives.
Secondly, David Cameron is clearly doing good work in making the party sound less miserly and grouchy. Although the process of young people becoming more positive about conservatism was clearly ongoing before he took over it seems almost certain he has enabled it to progress more easily with the changes he has made and is making to the Conservative Party. It seems reasonable to expect that young people are generally less certain of their ideological bearings (apart from a small minority who are politically active) and, as such, addressing a broader range of issues than the traditional conservative battlegrounds has to be helpful in making the party seem more relevant.
Thirdly, as conservatism is admitting defeat on "think of the children" social issues it becomes more palatable to young people. Young people don't necessarily disagree with socially conservative attitudes on these things, witness their relatively pro-life position on abortion on demand, but they tend to regard those who push social conservatism as either patronising or vaguely crazed; they expect these views to be personal and largely private. They then worry that if they are openly conservative they will be regarded as equally patronising or crazed. A similar trend is at work in the wider electorate but it is more pronounced among young people.
2) Social Democracy is No Longer a New and Ideological Movement
Those born in the post war generation grew up in an era with a popular memory of when the debate had been Conservative-Liberal and the socialist challenge from Labour was still something new and exciting. There was a genuine ex ante hope that it might be possible to, through the beneficent actions of an enlightened state, create a society shorn of inequality, misery and with a much higher standard of living for all. This didn't work out.
First, the revolutionary movement associated with socialism descended into atrocity and madness. Second, the Social Democratic states failed to guarantee the material wellbeing and security they had promised. The conservative backlash, Reagan in the States and Thatcher here, proved more successful in reversing national declines than even its supporters can have hoped. While the Thatcher/Reagan successes could be disputed by the socialists, and still are, socialists were reduced to arguing about records and empirics rather than emotively contrasting hope with fearful decline.
While those who were young when the socialist movement was still full of promise still see the socialist cause as essentially youthful and hopeful it now has to fight a rather more even fight with conservatism among the contemporary young who will not give it the benefit of the doubt.
3) The expanding Conservative Movement gives Conservatives more to Do while Young
Left wing young people have always had plenty to do politically. They will start protesting from a young age; if their parents are left wing then almost from birth. Right wingers have relatively few ways to express their conservatism. Conservative Future and its predecessors have primarily been social circles, except at election time, and probably not a circle that will often appeal outside the ambitious. Right wing protests are rare and usually comparatively poorly attended.
This made the sacrifice of facing the social stigma of being a conservative appear rather pointless for many who might have been tempted by conservatism. It has started to be eroded by the new media, such as blogs, which allow young conservatives to participate on their own terms in adult political dialogue and an increased ease in combining conservatism with publicly caring about other issues such as humanitarian crises and the environment.
4) Exposure to Britain's New Underclass
Ann Widdecombe, in a quote near the end of the Telegraph article, questions the results of the survey for the Scout's Association on the grounds that she has seen "increasing disaffection among young people who are growing up without aspirations". Of course, the Scouts survey, which looked at majority attitudes, and Ann Widdecombe's experience are not contradictory and hint at a reality of a majority of fairly well rounded young people and a minority with very serious problems.
Now, while an adult will be segregated away from the underclass of the materially and socially deprived, both at work and at play, comprehensive schooling means that young Middle England meets them everyday. This contact makes it more obvious that something is going wrong beyond a lack of economic wealth and opportunity. Troubled children at my school were growing up with the same access to education as I was and with all of the opportunity afforded by living in rich Hertfordshire. This makes it more obvious that the kinds of causes conservative analyses like Iain Duncan Smith's report discuss, family breakdown and the other such issues, are the more numerically important causes of social deprivation.
What it is important to note is that all of these changes are incomplete, most young people are still broadly left wing, and some can be reversed. The rise of the Young Tory is neither complete nor certain. However, there is good reason to hope that the party and movement can continue to gain in support across the age range. Particularly if conservatives can continue to address the social causes of deprivation, give young people plenty of opportunities to get involved and avoid hectoring social conservatism. Also, particularly if the social democrats continue to sound so nostalgic for a fifties golden age which really existed only in their imagination and certainly has no hold on the memory of the young.
Despite having now left university I am still, at 23, comfortably in the Conservative Future age range and, as such, feel entitled to comment on what might be driving an increased conservatism among younger people.
1) A Decline in the Social Stigma attached to Conservatism
I think that the social stigma attached to being an evil, heartless, Tory is more important to young people. Without careers and the like to hang their social status on young people are generally more careful about anything which might endanger their hard won social standing. There would seem to be a few factors working to undermine the social stigma around conservatism.
Firstly, any ideology which is very electorally successful, as the social democrats are at the moment, will necessarily be the party of a lot of voters and these voters will often be those that young people think little of; to look at the Scouts Association survey that would be the likes of Pete Doherty and other assorted trendies of the sort that backed Blair in 97. Related to this is that the socialists can no longer sustain the idealism of opposition and have had to do unpopular things, such as the Iraq war, and now are forced to argue at the realist level of conservatives.
Secondly, David Cameron is clearly doing good work in making the party sound less miserly and grouchy. Although the process of young people becoming more positive about conservatism was clearly ongoing before he took over it seems almost certain he has enabled it to progress more easily with the changes he has made and is making to the Conservative Party. It seems reasonable to expect that young people are generally less certain of their ideological bearings (apart from a small minority who are politically active) and, as such, addressing a broader range of issues than the traditional conservative battlegrounds has to be helpful in making the party seem more relevant.
Thirdly, as conservatism is admitting defeat on "think of the children" social issues it becomes more palatable to young people. Young people don't necessarily disagree with socially conservative attitudes on these things, witness their relatively pro-life position on abortion on demand, but they tend to regard those who push social conservatism as either patronising or vaguely crazed; they expect these views to be personal and largely private. They then worry that if they are openly conservative they will be regarded as equally patronising or crazed. A similar trend is at work in the wider electorate but it is more pronounced among young people.
2) Social Democracy is No Longer a New and Ideological Movement
Those born in the post war generation grew up in an era with a popular memory of when the debate had been Conservative-Liberal and the socialist challenge from Labour was still something new and exciting. There was a genuine ex ante hope that it might be possible to, through the beneficent actions of an enlightened state, create a society shorn of inequality, misery and with a much higher standard of living for all. This didn't work out.
First, the revolutionary movement associated with socialism descended into atrocity and madness. Second, the Social Democratic states failed to guarantee the material wellbeing and security they had promised. The conservative backlash, Reagan in the States and Thatcher here, proved more successful in reversing national declines than even its supporters can have hoped. While the Thatcher/Reagan successes could be disputed by the socialists, and still are, socialists were reduced to arguing about records and empirics rather than emotively contrasting hope with fearful decline.
While those who were young when the socialist movement was still full of promise still see the socialist cause as essentially youthful and hopeful it now has to fight a rather more even fight with conservatism among the contemporary young who will not give it the benefit of the doubt.
3) The expanding Conservative Movement gives Conservatives more to Do while Young
Left wing young people have always had plenty to do politically. They will start protesting from a young age; if their parents are left wing then almost from birth. Right wingers have relatively few ways to express their conservatism. Conservative Future and its predecessors have primarily been social circles, except at election time, and probably not a circle that will often appeal outside the ambitious. Right wing protests are rare and usually comparatively poorly attended.
This made the sacrifice of facing the social stigma of being a conservative appear rather pointless for many who might have been tempted by conservatism. It has started to be eroded by the new media, such as blogs, which allow young conservatives to participate on their own terms in adult political dialogue and an increased ease in combining conservatism with publicly caring about other issues such as humanitarian crises and the environment.
4) Exposure to Britain's New Underclass
Ann Widdecombe, in a quote near the end of the Telegraph article, questions the results of the survey for the Scout's Association on the grounds that she has seen "increasing disaffection among young people who are growing up without aspirations". Of course, the Scouts survey, which looked at majority attitudes, and Ann Widdecombe's experience are not contradictory and hint at a reality of a majority of fairly well rounded young people and a minority with very serious problems.
Now, while an adult will be segregated away from the underclass of the materially and socially deprived, both at work and at play, comprehensive schooling means that young Middle England meets them everyday. This contact makes it more obvious that something is going wrong beyond a lack of economic wealth and opportunity. Troubled children at my school were growing up with the same access to education as I was and with all of the opportunity afforded by living in rich Hertfordshire. This makes it more obvious that the kinds of causes conservative analyses like Iain Duncan Smith's report discuss, family breakdown and the other such issues, are the more numerically important causes of social deprivation.
What it is important to note is that all of these changes are incomplete, most young people are still broadly left wing, and some can be reversed. The rise of the Young Tory is neither complete nor certain. However, there is good reason to hope that the party and movement can continue to gain in support across the age range. Particularly if conservatives can continue to address the social causes of deprivation, give young people plenty of opportunities to get involved and avoid hectoring social conservatism. Also, particularly if the social democrats continue to sound so nostalgic for a fifties golden age which really existed only in their imagination and certainly has no hold on the memory of the young.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Celebrity Madness
Credit where credit is due. This article from CommentisFree is genuinely amusing with this excerpt scarily plausible:
I don't actually think people are getting more stupid. The past contains the Children's Crusade, massed apocalypse cults and eunuchs all of which I think are probably almost as idiotic as Heat.
The change that has come with rising incomes is a rapid decline in the extent to which working class imaginations spend most of their time and energy focussed upon bread and butter issues which require a certain common sense. Rising leisure time and jobs which are not as physically exhausting free the common man to indulge his inner idiot. Instead of moments of idiocy being a vocation for minorities like eunuchs or parents indulging their children's crusading fervour they can be undertaken by all in their spare time.
Also, I think feminism, socialism and the other liberation movements have induced something of an internal relativism which means that only at the extremes of reality TV can we call someone as stupid as a spade as stupid as a spade. Jordan isn't a smart enterpriser; she's ironically somewhat similar to a eunuch in that she has mutilated herself for pecuniary gain. Little Britain isn't clever and witty; it's an unimaginative caricature of Python. The Harry Potter series are children's books and adults reading them are lazy. Elitism is the instinct that allows us to make these simple but important judgements and the gratuitously anti-elitist movements of the twentieth century are responsible for making us guilty about expressing them.
"If George Clooney called a globally televised press conference, then plucked out two of his eyelashes and announced he would donate them free of charge to the first viewer to turn round and murder their entire family, thousands would perish. Read that again. It is a fact."
I don't actually think people are getting more stupid. The past contains the Children's Crusade, massed apocalypse cults and eunuchs all of which I think are probably almost as idiotic as Heat.
The change that has come with rising incomes is a rapid decline in the extent to which working class imaginations spend most of their time and energy focussed upon bread and butter issues which require a certain common sense. Rising leisure time and jobs which are not as physically exhausting free the common man to indulge his inner idiot. Instead of moments of idiocy being a vocation for minorities like eunuchs or parents indulging their children's crusading fervour they can be undertaken by all in their spare time.
Also, I think feminism, socialism and the other liberation movements have induced something of an internal relativism which means that only at the extremes of reality TV can we call someone as stupid as a spade as stupid as a spade. Jordan isn't a smart enterpriser; she's ironically somewhat similar to a eunuch in that she has mutilated herself for pecuniary gain. Little Britain isn't clever and witty; it's an unimaginative caricature of Python. The Harry Potter series are children's books and adults reading them are lazy. Elitism is the instinct that allows us to make these simple but important judgements and the gratuitously anti-elitist movements of the twentieth century are responsible for making us guilty about expressing them.
If my wings should fail me...
It may sound morose but I have a pretty good idea of how I'd like my own funeral to play out. This clip illustrates it pretty perfectly.
Of course, I don't need a sword or the other old English paraphenalia and lighting the boat on fire with flaming arrows may require specialists who are hard to come by but the general idea of being put on a boat which is then lit on fire and floated out to sea is very appealing. The Cornish coast is probably the best for this purpose thanks to its ruggedness.
Before this film came out my old plan was to be burned on a pyre with coins on my eyes as the various heroes are in Troy but the clip above seems far more classy and doesn't leave the issue of ashes.
Unfortunately, it appears that burning people in the open air after they are dead is illegal. Hopefully the Sikhs and Hindus will manage to get this ban removed and make my plan possible. If not perhaps I'll be okay anyway what with my burning not taking place on land.
Finally, a quick review of the film. It is very well directed with an excellent soundtrack and some epic vistas to keep the rather simple story interesting. It is quite different to the old mythical and Wagnerian Tristan and Isolde tales but that works quite well. The major weakness is that the lead spends too much time wearing his sulky face and, therefore, struggles to overcome the challenge of portraying love almost at first sight. I think the population of young British actors may have contained someone more suitable, with a more expressive face in particular.
Of course, I don't need a sword or the other old English paraphenalia and lighting the boat on fire with flaming arrows may require specialists who are hard to come by but the general idea of being put on a boat which is then lit on fire and floated out to sea is very appealing. The Cornish coast is probably the best for this purpose thanks to its ruggedness.
Before this film came out my old plan was to be burned on a pyre with coins on my eyes as the various heroes are in Troy but the clip above seems far more classy and doesn't leave the issue of ashes.
Unfortunately, it appears that burning people in the open air after they are dead is illegal. Hopefully the Sikhs and Hindus will manage to get this ban removed and make my plan possible. If not perhaps I'll be okay anyway what with my burning not taking place on land.
Finally, a quick review of the film. It is very well directed with an excellent soundtrack and some epic vistas to keep the rather simple story interesting. It is quite different to the old mythical and Wagnerian Tristan and Isolde tales but that works quite well. The major weakness is that the lead spends too much time wearing his sulky face and, therefore, struggles to overcome the challenge of portraying love almost at first sight. I think the population of young British actors may have contained someone more suitable, with a more expressive face in particular.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
There's always a bigger fish...
...which deserves an ASBO.
Mr. Eugenides is adding to his sphere of influence. It used to be that he was the 'go-to guy' for Comment is Free bashing. Now he informs us of the Scottish Parliament's increasingly dismal output.
The latest is a ban on live bait for anglers. Now, a ban on angling is, if utterly illiberal and rather philosophically questionable, at least somewhat defensible in terms of preventing animal suffering which is not strictly necessary. However, clearly the act of placing hooks in fishes isn't what is being targetted here. Rather, the problem is setting a fish up to be eaten by another fish. However, in terms of sheer numbers it seems pretty certain that far more fish are made prey independently by carnivorous fish than are made prey by human intervention; this is an entirely natural process.
The usual separation of natural animal carnivores and unnecessary human eating can't really be made here as we are not the ones doing the eating but are merely facilitating a fish eating another. The only "unnatural" event is when the pike is removed from the water following its meal but this is little different to other forms of angling.
Surely the answer, if you have a problem with fish lower down the food chain being eaten by fish further up the food chain is some kind of mass pike detoothing programme?
Mr. Eugenides is adding to his sphere of influence. It used to be that he was the 'go-to guy' for Comment is Free bashing. Now he informs us of the Scottish Parliament's increasingly dismal output.
The latest is a ban on live bait for anglers. Now, a ban on angling is, if utterly illiberal and rather philosophically questionable, at least somewhat defensible in terms of preventing animal suffering which is not strictly necessary. However, clearly the act of placing hooks in fishes isn't what is being targetted here. Rather, the problem is setting a fish up to be eaten by another fish. However, in terms of sheer numbers it seems pretty certain that far more fish are made prey independently by carnivorous fish than are made prey by human intervention; this is an entirely natural process.
The usual separation of natural animal carnivores and unnecessary human eating can't really be made here as we are not the ones doing the eating but are merely facilitating a fish eating another. The only "unnatural" event is when the pike is removed from the water following its meal but this is little different to other forms of angling.
Surely the answer, if you have a problem with fish lower down the food chain being eaten by fish further up the food chain is some kind of mass pike detoothing programme?
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