Shooting in Letchworth Garden City

I've been following the updates on this story through the day, the last update was just a minute ago:

"August 23, 2007FURTHER ARRESTS FOLLOWING INCIDENT IN LETCHWORTH
By Corporate Communication Dept

POLICE can now confirm there have been a total of six arrests in connection with a shooting incident which happened at Boscombe Court, Letchworth Garden City at 11.40am today.

Five men, four who are in their 20’s and one who is in his mid 30’s, have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. A woman in her 30’s has also been arrested in connection with the incident.

Two men remain in hospital at this time.

Although police are seeking witnesses and information about the incident, officers are confident at this stage that there is no-one outstanding in relation to what is an isolated dispute.

Assistant Chief Constable Gary Kitching said: “This is obviously a very serious situation but we are confident that we know who was involved and what caused the incident.

“This is an isolated dispute but we are very mindful how residents in Letchworth Garden City will be feeling at this time and want to reassure them at this stage.”

Anyone with information should call Hertfordshire Constabulary on 0845 3300 222. Alternatively call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111. You do not have to give your name and you could be entitled to a cash reward."

Letchworth is the town I grew up in and where my family still live.

The town has a population of 33,600. Its main claim to fame is as the world’s first Garden City (it was built shortly before the First World War and has lots of green spaces and all the houses have gardens). It is largely a commuter town (to London, Cambridge or Stevenage) with a disproportionate number of young families. It has the UK's only population of black squirrels. Here is a picture:



I know this blog has some US readers and it would be quite understandable for them to think this isn't quite as big a deal as I'm making it out to be. So, to make things clear: Gun crime is an entirely different animal in the UK.

Gun control is so tight (our sport shooting teams have trouble practicing) that gun crime in an area tends to suggest a massive law and order breakdown. We know that is happening in some areas of London and the Midlands and Northern cities but for it to be starting to spread, even tentatively, to peaceful Home Counties Towns is truly alarming.

I could be wrong. This could just be a freak incident with a shooting by a group of crazies but the fact six people, rather than a lone gunman, have been arrested certainly suggests it is a gang issue. If gun crime has spread to Letchworth David Cameron's description of ‘anarchy in the UK’ is in no way hyperbole.

Update: This is sounding more and more gruesome. While the victims are apparently only wounded they were shot in the face.

Again, while this could turn out to be a freak incident I do think it is significant if the law and order breakdown is spreading to places like Letchworth. It suggests that the problem is not just a breakdown in certain communities but a genuine national crisis.

Public opinion and the environment

Last Thursday Blair Gibbs posted the following graph to the TPA blog, taken from a DEFRA poll conducted every five years:

It shows that the number of people who rate the environment as an issue that they think the Government should be dealing with is actually in decline. This suggests that, while people will say they'd like to deal with climate change if asked directly, it is not a priority and not really on their minds. This suggests that they will not be willing to pay the kind of price Monbiot et. al. want them to.

However, the numbers citing the environment as a priority could be misleadingly high. Those rating the "environment" as an important issue quite likely do not mean the environment in the Gaia, global warming, sense. This AEI poll (PDF) shows that in the US global warming is only the 8th most important environmental issue to most Americans. Opinion may be different in the UK but a similar issue, "the environment" doesn't mean "global warming" to most people, probably exists.

While I'm on the subject of the DEFRA poll, this graph is depressing:

It concerns the number of people who have heard of and are willing to buy 'environmentally-friendly' products. Given that Fair Trade implies subsidising people producing over-produced crops it is inherently wasteful and even if it has some kind of dubious environmental provision that is highly unlikely to outweigh the environmental cost of unnecessary food production. That DEFRA lumps fair trade in as an environmentally-friendly product suggests it has a rather wooly understanding of these things.

"Free Lite!"

London's street newspaper distributors frustrate me. From sellers of the Evening Standard, the oldest London newspaper distributed through street vendors, you are lucky to get a "Standard!" or a "West End Final!" It's unimaginative, uninformative and dull.

The London Paper and the London Lite are even worse. "Free Lite!" is a particularly despiriting example. It doesn't communicate anything at all. I'm pretty certain that every person in London knew, within days of the free papers launching, that they are free. It is noise for the sake of noise.

Why don't they say anything interesting? I'm pretty certain that a lot of people are like me. They buy the Standard or take a free paper when they see an interesting story on the cover. If they shouted out what the headline story is they might spark people's curiosity and get a customer. It would also make the whole process so much more interesting and characterful.

Nathalie Rothschild escapes Climate Camp

As an antidote to most of the media's fawning love-in with the protesters, good old-fashioned Express hippy-rage aside, Nathalie Rothschild's account of her visit to the Climate Camp is superb. I was going to cut some sections out but the whole article is so worth reading I won't. Go read it.

The difference between honour killing and a conservative view of family

Gracchi discusses the position of women:

"At one end of that extreme lies the emerging problem in the UK of honour killings, at the other more benign end you have a character like Dennis Prager who informed his readers in 2003 that women going to see male strippers were betraying their true nature,

"It has told them that equality means acting the same as men. That is how you have the utterly false spectacle of women acting thrilled to have anonymous men strip and rub themselves on them."

Mr Prager ought to remember that women are quite capable of working out their sexuality without his help and that furthermore their sexuality will vary."

Prager is clearly generalising to some extent but I think his claim seems at least somewhat plausible. There is good reason, in evolutionary biology terms, to expect that a woman's sexuality will function somewhat differently to that of a man. After all, in a primitive situation anonymous sex would have worked well for a man (who could have created a child without putting in the effort to bring it up) but exceptionally poorly for a woman (who would face bearing a child without support).

The argument that Prager is patronising women is plausible if you just read the section of the text Gracchi has quoted. However, the evidence Prager uses to back up his argument is the testimony, from calls to his radio show, of young women. He asked women to work out their own sexuality just as Gracchi recommends.

Finally, Prager's conclusion doesn't seem at all demeaning to women. I think that it casts them in a rather good light. As more emotionally intelligent compared to men who are too often at the mercy of their hormones.

"Mr Prager's real concern though in stating this difference is his idea that women are the basis and buttress of the family unit- and consequently can't behave in the way that he perceives them behaving- in that sense like the honour killer he sees the world as one where women are men's property, in mourning what he calls the "death of femininity" what Mr Prager mourns is the period in which a woman's sex life was a way of signifying the virtue of the community in which she lived in."

This is the part of Gracchi's post that really troubles me.

Firstly, Gracchi has entirely assumed Prager's 'real concern'. There is no mention of family values in Prager's piece.

Secondly, the view that women are a basis and buttress of the family unit does not imply the view that they are somebody's property. I think I'd see women as a basis and buttress of the family unit. I'd say the same for men and, indeed, for children. That does not imply that any member of the family is the property of any other. This is just an attempt to fit the square peg of the family relationship into the round hole of the Left's power narrative.

Finally, the idea that Prager is mourning "the period in which a woman's sex life was a way of signifying the virtue of the community in which she lived in." is entirely unsubstantiated. The difference between Prager and the honour killer would be obvious to any less hyperbolic treatment of Prager's piece as his discussion is based upon the question "what kind of relationship with men is most fulfilling, both emotionally and sexually, for women?" The honour killer would see that question as almost entirely irrelevant.

Gracchi is drawing continuities that don't exist. There is no similarity between the entirely caring, decent and respectful perspective of most social conservatives and the sick, twisted worldview of the honour killer.

Stop aggregating Britain

This article by Fraser Nelson for the Business is a brilliant elaboration of a theme this blog has noted before. It is increasingly impossible to understand trends in Britain in terms of aggregate movements.

I know regional divides are not unique to the UK. However, few countries have divides quite as stark as Britain's. Few countries have such a huge divide between the Hong Kong capitalism of the City and other such areas, that exists thanks to things like the non-domiciled rules, and the quasi-Communist North. As I mentioned in the earlier blog there is some indication that we have the greatest regional income inequality in Europe. Nelson's article establishes that there is a similar inequality in terms of numbers on benefits.

Looking at aggregate statistics in income, unemployment and statism for the UK is almost entirely a superficial exercise. There is no significant central tendency. When we compare our record on productivity, income or unemployment (to name just three economic statistics - the same is true for others like life expectancy) to that of other countries we are comparing an entirely hypothetical Britain. The reality will often be that, for example on income, the South is just about the richest region in Europe and the poorer regions are just about the poorest.

I'm not sure our notoriously centralised politics can deal with this. We are used to having national debates (although whenever someone calls for a "national debate" I die a little inside) and those tend to be based upon aggregate statistics. It will take a fundamental shift in our national consciousness to understand that for many policy questions (such as "has the minimum wage seriously depressed unemployment?") no useful answer can be given for the United Kingdom as a whole. If we can't make that shift we're going to keep missing the point on a whole spectrum of issues.

American political organisation in 1972

This is fascinating:



I'm pretty sure that with over three decades of rapidly expanding computing power and declining cost the British parties now have a rather more sophisticated operation than the Republicans in 1972. Still, this video clip hints at how grand the organisational effort behind American elections is and I don't think either British party has the broad-based financing that the Republicans were clearly working on even back then.

Video via RealClearPolitics.

Getting "answers"

Today I forced my first response from a Minister (and in the Metro too but that isn't online).

Not only that; the response is also clearly wrong.

"I learned the names of your cities, what more do you want!"

An Obama campaign video for Iowa:



Less than inspiring.

Video via RealClearPolitics.

Aspirational Rochdale

Tim Aker posts on the TaxPayers' Alliance blog:

"If anyone needs convincing that Regional Development Agencies are a waste of time, space and money, one should look at the Rochdale Development Agency. The Times reports this morning that the Rochdale Development Agency has been advertising Rochdale by using pictures of Manchester.

Yes. They advertised Rochdale by showing pictures of a completely different area fifteen miles away. Why? The development agency said it was to “reflect the aspirations of Rochdale’s citizens”."

I think its probably quite an accurate reflection of the aspirations of Rochdale's citizens. To leave.

The new logo

Maybe I'm just being childish but has anyone else noticed a rather unfortunate consequence of the new variant of the oak tree logo?

It looks like Cameron is smoking something intense.

Mine Your Own Business

I've just finished watching the documentary film "Mine Your Own Business". It is made by the former Financial Times correspondent to Romania and Bulgaria and examines environmentalist campaigns against mining projects.

It restates a common complaint against environmentalists: that those who claim to be defending local interests have a deep arrogance in telling those locals what their interests are. However, it also illustrates how innacurate the picture presented to the world by the green campaigners often is.

He shows how the inhabitants of a Romanian village that is going to have a mining project built do not prefer horse and cart to cars and were not forced from their homes but gratefully sold; how the village is not a pristine environment risking destruction at the hands of greedy foreigners but an already damaged environment that needs investment to avoid becoming a wasteland and that claims that the villagers can do equally well out of tourism or farming are deeply spurious. It shows how the best friends of environmentalists fighting a mining project in Latin America are landowners worried that the new project will offer their workers an escape from poverty wages. In short, it shows that the claims of foreign environmentalists are often entirely disconnected from reality.

It is highly credible to me thanks to my own experience of this kind of thing in a different setting. When I was a fair bit younger, 17 I think, I went to Lake Baikal in Siberia on a programme with an organisation called Earthwatch. Essentially, it attached me as a helper to an expedition monitoring pollutants in the lake, one of the largest bodies of freshwater in the world.

While we were out there they showed us a Greenpeace film. It upset the woman who hosted us. It showed the lake dying, poisoned. However, the man leading our expedition, an amazing sixty year old who had smoked for decades but still outpaced a group of us many of whom were half his age, gave a different account. He had spent decades studying the lake and told us in a matter of fact tone that what was presented on the film was entirely untrue. While Lake Baikal is a lake one would expect to become polluted as most of Mongolia's industry discharges into a river that feeds it things have not turned out that way; it is incredibly clean. It is much purer than even bottled water in the West and I quickly got used to filling my water bottle straight from the lake. Some kind of natural filter operates to keep the lake so clean.

Our scientist was attempting to work out how that filter operated, and whether it would continue to function. Greenpeace were ignoring reality and communicating a fiction to the outside world. That other environmental activists will do the same in other situations seems entirely credible to me. Mine Your Own Business shows the consequences: communities needlessly denied the chance of a more comfortable and hopeful life.

The Hidden Costs of the Olympics: £4 billion in construction inflation

I have a new TaxPayers' Alliance report out today looking at the implications of the Olympics for construction inflation. As I said:

“Increasing the cost of construction in London and the South East is not only hazardous to the health of the British economy but also imperils the objective of getting enough new homes built to make things easier for first-time buyers. The bigger the bill for the Olympics becomes, the more damaging this knock-on hidden cost will be.”

This has led to my first front-page quote, in today's Metro. Good times.

Giuliani talking to Charlie Rose

This interview is superb. Very impressive showing by Giuliani.



It also shows how the long, non-confrontational interview style that 18DoughtyStreet (which I was on again yesterday evening, the episode of Vox Politix on council tax) is going for can work and become far more informative than the combative Paxman style, although Paxman's approach clearly has its uses. What both methods of interview require is a superbly informed and prepared interviewer. Charlie Rose is clearly a master of the art.

William Dalrymple's suspect economic history

William Dalrymple's article for the Telegraph is full of historical detail which makes it a pleasure to read. However, his analysis of the big picture appears weak to me.

A few criticisms:

1. His main example of abuse under the Raj is sensational evidence given by the prosecution of a man later found innocent. A rather suspect source to say the least. The acquital suggests the evidence might well not have been accurate and even if the events did occur there is no way we can really get to the bottom of whether they can be generalised from.
2. He talks of "the destruction of Indian political, cultural and artistic self-confidence". The question has to be, whose? The Mughal dynasty certainly took a heavy blow but they were foreign conquerors like the British. Imperialist dominance of India did not begin with the Raj. Did the broad mass of Indians suffer such a blow to their confidence?
3. The shift in the share of global GDP produced in India and Britain is ascribed to Indian economic failure rather than, as would be more realistic, to the colossal relative success of Britain as the first industrial nation.
4. India's relative decline is understood entirely in political terms of imperialism or exploitation. However, a classic paper by Parthasarathi showed how Britain was unable to compete with Indian cotton production before the Industrial Revolution. Industrialisation transformed Britain's competitive position in a vital industry. India's decline can therefore be seen, at least partially, as a matter of changes in economic conditions rather than as some kind of political crime.

All that makes this a dissapointing piece. Dalrymple does attest to the force of the debate over Britain's impact on India and clearly has a lot of knowledge but is not prepared to do that debate justice.

Why not walk it?

Over the last few weeks I've been enjoying these posters from Transport for London, displayed on bus stops around London:

They just beg for someone to answer the "Why not walk it?" tagline with "You might as well given the state of the Tube."

The whole campaign sounds like an admission of defeat given that they're the ones who are supposed to be providing public transport in our fine city. The campaign has also been revealed, this Saturday in the Times, to be hilariously wrong in the impression it gives of the 'green' benefits of walking. Apparently walking uses more CO2 than driving thanks to the amount of carbon dioxide and, crucially, methane emitted during food production.

Suffer and Survive - Gas Attacks, Miners' Canaries, Spacesuits and the Bends: The Extreme Life of Dr J. S. Haldane by Martin Goodman

Cross-posted from Westminster Wisdom

This book is hitting the shops now but, courtesy of being the author's nephew, I've been reading an advanced copy over the last couple of weeks.

It is a very enjoyable read. Martin's writing is assured and unpretentious but very vivid when necessary. He has researched thoroughly enough that he has the detail to really bring the characters to life.

The era, late nineteenth and early twentieth century Britain, is a fascinating one and not written about enough. Suffer and Survive, like George Dangerfield's The Strange Death of Liberal England, gives us a glimpse of the world before the First World War. A world making the transition, in fits and starts, from that of the Industrial Revolution to one we might more easily recognise today.

Haldane's story is well worth telling. He was born to one of the oldest Scottish aristocratic families. The Haldanes already had quite a history of public service - the book's title is inspired by their motto "Suffer". J.S. Haldane extended that tradition. His exploration of how the human body interacts with its environment advanced science and also saved thousands upon thousands of lives.

Just taking his more famous creations Haldane was responsible for canaries in mines, gas masks and diving tables. However, he paid quite the price for incredible discoveries, subjecting his own body to poison gas and extreme conditions including alarmingly regular carbon monoxide poisoning in order to understand the effects of environmental conditions on the human body. Indeed, at times this book can get a little lost in descriptions of the physical peril faced by Haldane and his various research partners before being snapped back to its narrative.

Like many great popular science books this gives an idea of how incredible the scientific process itself has been. It provides a remarkable case-study of the lengths to which people have gone to increase the sum of human knowledge. Hopefully it might cause us all to be a little more appreciative of the legacy suffering survivors down the ages have left us.

CiFWatcher

DK has created a home for responses to Comment is Free. CiFWatcher.

It is just getting started but should be well worth keeping an eye on. Comment is Free is central to the mainstream Left's presence in the blogosphere. That makes fisking or otherwise rebutting Comment is Free articles a fine task for any right-wing blogger. If you'd like to contribute e-mail DK.

Charlie Bell - If this is the future of the Left...

Cross-posted from CiF Watcher

Charlie Bell's "I'm young but I care" article for Comment is Free is quite the demonstration of why 'grown-up' politicians shouldn't take the voice of 'the youth' too seriously:

"A common response, by one of my friends, to any questions that could possibly touch on the area of politics is: "I don't care - I'm not really interested in politics." But who can blame him? Not a week seems to go by without yet another depressing statistic about today's youth in this country. Not only do we have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, but the Institute for Public Policy Research has just released a report that brands British teenagers the worst behaved in Europe. With gun crime, drug taking and binge drinking never far away from the headlines, we must be an appalling generation."

That's a complete non sequitur. There is no reason to expect that depressing statistics make people less likely to engage with politics. If things are going alright already why try to make a difference? By contrast, serious problems like those identified by the IPPR suggest that getting involved is worthwhile.

"And even those who claim to be in touch with the youth miss the point. The famous "hug-a-hoodie" idea (unfairly attributed to the Conservatives) highlights this - just because people wear a hoodie and hang around with their friends doesn't mean the next thing they'll be doing is smashing up a cafe or binge drinking. You don't see police community support officers marching up to Costa or Starbucks and breaking up a group of middle-aged women simply because they are all wearing jeans. It sounds ridiculous, but the only reason needed to stop young people who are innocently walking the streets is an item of clothing. And that makes us the terrible generation?"

This is staggeringly ignorant:

• Middle-aged women wearing jeans don't terrorise the law-abiding, particularly senior citizens, into staying at home after dark.
• The 'hoodie' isn't just one more item of clothing. It has a particular function in hiding the wearer's face that aids criminality, petty or serious. That is why it is associated with criminality and rightly causes suspicion.
• Just because not all those wearing hoodies are trouble does not mean suspicion is ill-founded.

"We are the IT-literate generation, the generation that will (seemingly to the horror of the media) eventually take over as this country's leaders. Maybe those who constantly talk of saving the world for "our children and grandchildren" should wake up and realise that's us. We are the future, and we need to be included. Every time someone young comes up with a new idea, they are beaten down for being inexperienced. Take David Cameron, for example. It's taboo to talk about elderly statesmen being too old for the job, for fear of being ageist, but the moment a young politician or commentator opens his mouth to speak, they are criticised for being too young to have any worthwhile ideas."

'Charlie' is clearly too young to remember the last election. Michael Howard faced frequent criticism for being too old. He is also clearly too poorly informed to have noticed the masses of criticism Menzies Campbell has faced for his age. Eric Forth's shouting "declare your interest" during an early question Campbell was trying to ask the Prime Minister on pensions was a particular high point. By contrast, David Cameron used his relative youth as a selling point in the Conservative leadership election.

"The answer is simple - young people feel strongly about things that will affect them. Climate change is going to flood my house, not that of my grandmother."

Actually even under Stern's "alarmist and incompetent" (PDF) analysis, it isn't myself and Charlie's generation that will pay the price for climate change. As Nordhaus noted the majority of the harms Stern identifies come after 2800. With decent flood defences and if he avoids living in an eco-town on a flood plain he should be fine.

If this is the future of the Left politics is about to get fun if infuriating.

Eco-Socialists hate flying

This is my problem with green politics at its most eco-socialist: I don't think they're doing what any attempt at forming environmental policy should be doing - trading off expected costs to climate change against the costs of stopping us doing the things we love. They don't love the things we do.

They hate flying:

"Except there's a catch. The truth is, I don't feel I'm making any sacrifice at all. Because I hate flying."

[...]

"Even before kids came along, I hated flying. Irrational, I know, but I find it frightening: the loss of control, the sheer helplessness up in the sky. I can make my palms sweat just thinking about it."

Now, do we believe that when Jonathan Freedland makes the case for increased taxation on aviation he is thinking "while it isn't to my taste I understand that other people enjoy flying, what a shame we have to cut down to save the environment"? Or, do we think he has "Good. Bloody planes" running through his head?

I reckon it's the latter and I don't think Freedland is alone. They don't like planes, cars and the rest of modern, industrial life. They don't possess the humility to accept that others do. Green politics provides an excuse to push lifestyles in a direction their hippy movement has been pushing for decades.

That's why they'll ignore that, for example, trains aren't better than planes for the environment if they go at a decent speed (as the one pictured in Freedland's article does). From an article by Monbiot of all people:

"Though trains traveling at normal speeds have much lower carbon emissions than airplanes…. energy consumption rises dramatically at speeds above 125 miles per hour…. If the trains are powered by electricity, and if that electricity is produced by plants burning fossil fuels, they cause more C02 emissions than planes."

Funniest libertarian article title ever...

I'm really quite ill so pearls of wisdom will have to wait till tomorrow at the earliest. However, in place of actual analysis I give you the funniest libertarian article title ever - linked from a Ludwig von Mises Institute blog - USA Survival.Org's wonderful:

Secret Agenda: Law of the Sea Treaty Provides Elements of World Government; U.N. "Mother of the Oceans" Exposed as Radical Socialist and Loony Leftist Who "Taught" Dogs to Type and Play Piano

Jokes and the Lucas Critique

Someone repeated an old joke in an e-mail discussion earlier today:

"The French intellectual says: 'Sure, it works in practice... but does it work in theory?'"

The joke is that some people, usually French, have no interest in the real world and prefer academic houses of cards.

However, the French intellectual's question is actually quite legitimate. Consider the Lucas critique, Wikipedia's description is quite good:

"The Lucas Critique says that it's naive to try to predict the effect of a policy experiment based on correlations in historical data, especially high-level aggregated historical data. For example, Fort Knox has never been robbed, but that doesn't mean we can safely eliminate the guards, since the incentive (not) to rob Fort Knox depends on the presence of the guards. If we do want to predict the effect of a policy experiment, we must model the "deep parameters" (preferences, technology and resource constraints) that govern individual behaviour. We can then predict what individuals will do conditional on the change in policy."

Many theories may appear to work in practice. A great example is the Galbraithian explanation of the Wall Street Crash. It took an examination of the theory by a host of economists, most notably Milton Friedman, to reveal its vulnerability.

Cartoonish

Two great posts over at Mr. Eugenides.

First, he spots that the cartoon I pointed to earlier today is one of four using the same theme in the major national newspapers. Even with the Seventh Seal on re-release what are the odds?

Second, apparently Brown's policy that all government buildings will fly the Union Jack does not apply to the Scottish institutions. The possibility of parodying modern British politics grows ever more remote.

Peter Brookes in the Times

This is a great cartoon from Peter Brookes.

I watched The Seventh Seal recently and really liked it. It explores complex themes with a commendable lightness of touch and some truly arresting symbolism like that above.

News from Iraq has been so dismal the central thesis of the cartoon that, in meeting President Bush, Gordon Brown risks the electoral poison of association with that conflict seems very plausible. Richard Posner's decision theory case for leaving (via Stumbling and Mumbling) seems quite strong if there really is a negligible "expectation of a victory" and that has been my understanding of the situation.

However, it now seems possible that things will might turn out better than expected, if still nowhere near what was hoped for in the heady days immediately following Saddam's fall. Bush and Iraq might, therefore, not be quite the liability that the cartoon suggests they will be for Brown. This editorial from the New York Times suggests some genuine good news coming out of the country:

"Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily "victory" but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated -- many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.

How much longer should American troops keep fighting and dying to build a new Iraq while Iraqi leaders fail to do their part? And how much longer can we wear down our forces in this mission? These haunting questions underscore the reality that the surge cannot go on forever. But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008."

The Michigan TaxPayers' Alliance

The Michigan TaxPayers' Alliance are way cooler than we are. A giant pig called Mr. Perks would be so much fun...



Still, we have taxpayersalliance.com. That makes us the "official" TPA even if we don't have a giant fibre glass pig. Welcome to the Internet age.

Rankings and other trivia

I don't agree with the conclusions Chris comes to in his discussion of the ranking Iain Dale is trying to create. While I entirely agree with most of what he says, the ranking won't be a reliable guide to the 'best blogs', I think it, and the associated book, should be welcomed for practical reasons:

Blogging is, for most people, better when there are a larger number of people doing it. There are huge network effects as more people blogging opens more channels. I, and most others I think, enjoy blogging most when there are people responding to my posts and when there are interesting posts to respond to. It is a curiously anti-social social activity but a social activity nonetheless.

Now, an initiative like Dale's can serve an important function as a book, and a ranking, are a fine way of drawing attention to blogging. Of raising its profile and in doing so introducing new people to the pasttime. If some of them turn out to be interesting writers my 'blogging life' will be improved. If I take part in the ranking, and encourage others of an intellectual disposition to do the same, that will strengthen the chances of the blogs listed being ones that I like and should make the book a more effective way of drawing people I want to engage with into the blogosphere.

Green Cars

A report of mine looking at the cost and effectiveness of 'green cars' in government is on the TaxPayers' Alliance website.

In all my life outside of the Westminster bubble (for the uninitiated this is roughly between Victoria Station, the Thames and Trafalgar Square and is where most government departments and political parties are based) I have never seen one of these cars. When I go out for lunch around the office, right in the middle of the bubble, I will regularly see three or four in the space of a quarter of an hour.

It always rings alarm bells when government is wildly enthusiastic for a product ordinary consumers have rejected. The only people who drive these things in any numbers are Hollywood movie stars and British politicians. Neither group faces a hard budget.

As a result of those alarm bells I looked into the numbers. £888,000 wasted on an insignificant contribution to curbing emissions (even using government emissions figures and ignoring questions about the dust-to-dust emissions from a hybrid). Sure enough, ordinary people get it right again.

Top 20

Iain Dale is running a poll for the top hundred UK political blogs. You need to e-mail him with your top twenty (Top 20 in the subject line). Writing a book ranking bloggers is a sure-fire way of pissing huge numbers of people off so Iain deserves some credit for putting himself in the firing line.

I won't put my top twenty up here as I'm sure to forget someone and I'd rather my indiscretion wasn't public.

Identity and the Blogosphere

Over the last month there have been a slow but steady stream of posts - first from Tom Paine, then from Gracchi, then finally Ruthie - discussing identity and the blogosphere. They all focussed essentially on the uses of anonymity. The extent to which you can express yourself free from the encumbrances of an ossified persona.

Sinclair's Musings is a rather different blog to the three above. It is not anonymous and never has been. I post in my own name, the blog is named after me and the tone is very similar to my style in 'real-life'. The background to this site's logo is a painting by my favourite artist, Salvator Rosa.

My blog was never anonymous for a few reasons:

1. The freedom of being at university and then working at the TaxPayers' Alliance has meant that the blog has been beneficial to my career if anything.
2. My tone is naturally moderate and relatively polite.
3. Being in a political career I was going to be publicly identified with political stances anyway.
4. I don't need anonymity to escape a persona which might cause people to write off my opinions; I'm a white male, age 18 to 49. Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are.

The main purpose behind my blogging has always been to keep myself engaged with a broad set of interests. I originally started it as I was embarking upon my Master's thesis and didn't want to have nothing but the effects of deficits in my head for months at a time. Since then it has kept me engaged on themes like foreign policy, philosophy and the likes that don't really fit into my work at the TaxPayers' Alliance.

Another function of my blog is to maintain a voice that is purely my own. While others blog to escape their identities I've always felt that I was confirming mine. The TaxPayers' Alliance is great and I have more freedom there to express myself than it would have been fair of me to expect. However, keeping a little corner of the Internet where I really have the freedom to explore any idea or passing interest that takes my fancy is still a joy. Few things are more satisfying than to see this blog, my thoughts, stirring the thoughts or changing the minds of others.

I think the common thread through the four posts in this thread is that the benefits we've all taken from blogging are based around it opening new channels. So often we are confined to narrow bounds of geography and social circumstance. The erosion of the importance of geographical distance alone is sufficient for blogging to open up incredible possibilities, not to mention engagement across social lines. Where else would a young Minnesota mother aspiring to be a journalist, a British expatriate in Russia exasperated at the direction British politics is moving, a PhD student with a taste for the classics and a pressure group staffer with diverse intellectual tastes find themselves engaged in discussion?

The Simpsons Movie

Very, very good.

There is an obvious reservation. This film is unlikely to change your life. You are unlikely to "emerge with a sense of wonder at the cinematic craft, horror at the life of the prostitute, and some vague questions about dark continents within the soul- of desire, truth and perception- continents whose baleful power has haunted the imagination of the West- over which the ignorant armies of human perception clash by night!"

In fact, I'm not quite sure what the political message was. Something like "saving the environment is good but the government's attempts to defend it are going to be scary and insane" which may not be what they were going for. The reason the political message is unclear, however, is that the film has sensibly focussed upon the emotional story at the heart of the Simpsons; family. It makes simple observations about why families drift apart and why they stay together in a warm and friendly way.

If you want edgy messages or a film that's a challenge to sit through you'll be dissapointed but the easy style the Simpsons deploys doesn't make it less worthwhile or significant. Ella Fitzgerald's music isn't less significant than KoRn's.

This film is very, very funny. I'll avoid spoilers but it compares well with the series near the top of its game throughout the film. No small achievement. The 'Spider Pig' moment is an obvious star but there are a host of others. Hilarious.

Visually they've taken advantage of the big screen. Huge glass domes and angry mobs alike have a real grandeur to them. You also get a better sense of the Simpsons' style than in the series. The scale and quality shows how distinctive the 'look' of the characters is.

A thoroughly enjoyable film, well worth the wait.

Update: I've replaced the dull, normal trailer with a SpiderPig trailer that makes me giggle.

Support for an English Parliament

Vino's argues against an English Parliament in some detail. I think, hopefully he'll correct me if I'm wrong, that his argument can be boiled down to the following:

"However, I strongly suspect that there is not much demand for an English parliament as an immediate constitutional aim among voters in England. [...] So, to sum up, I do not feel that the West Lothian Question poses any significant real political issues – although it does pose logical ones. The way to deal with it would be, indeed, to offer a referendum on an English Parliament and see what happens. Should there not be public demand for it, then it will not pass. There is no reason to give devolution to voters who do not wish it and who prefer powers to be exercised by the national government or by regional or local authorities rather than by an intermediate layer of government. That would in itself be undemocratic and be overriding their preference for the status quo."

I agree with Gracchi's response to Vino: that the central issue is the constitutional inequality created by unequal devolution. I disagree with his identification of a rising tide of English patriotism/nationalism as generally 'nasty'. I think it's an entirely legitimate sense of fellow feeling and see no evidence it is more likely to lead to nastiness than other group-loyalties.

On the issue of having a referendum on a new parliament:

I doubt you would find a single member of a group like the Campaign for an English Parliament or the Witanagemot club (hopefully they'll correct me if I'm wrong) who wouldn't be absolutely happy with a referendum. It is obviously the way to introduce such an important constitutional change and appears likely to return a 'yes' answer.

On 'demand' for an English parliament:

The reason those of us in favour of an English Parliament would be confident about winning a referendum is that there is strong demand for such a parliament, across the United Kingdom. This has been revealed in polls such as this one, from the Telegraph:

Unfortunately it isn't just Vino who has not yet noted the rising demand for giving English voters proper representation. Labour ministers are of the same opinion; that there is little demand for an English parliament. Their mistake is far less understandable and far more important.

Regional Income Inequalities

I think it can be hard to get your head around regional income inequalities; the sheer scale of them. Some graphs I found on the Eurostat site help.

This shows the actual regional inequalities; the data is here. British regions include some of the richest in Europe, Inner London is at 302.9% of the EU27 average, or Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire at 173.8%. Others are decidedly poor, West Wales and the Valleys at 80.3% or Merseyside at 87.3%.

This shows that the United Kingdom has the largest range of any EU country. Of course, a range is only so instructive, it would be nice to see the variance. I bet the UK would be at or near the top of that table as well though.

Finally, this map shows growth. The gaps are not being closed. Rich regions in the UK are increasing their distance from the poorer ones.

This is despite a massive subsidy, which Mike Denham established the scale of - for example the South pays 9% of its GDP. This subsidy is not new. It is clearly failing to create a revival in the North and needs to be reassessed if the poorer regions are to recover some of their nineteenth century glory. David B Smith establishes comprehensively how government spending, even financed by the South, can trap the Northern economy into dependence if it takes up too large a percentage of the economy. The public sector in the North makes up 58% of that region's 'GDP', close to the 75% that the Communist regime is thought to have managed to control in the old Soviet Union. Enough to crowd out private industry, keep the subsidy politically necessary by preventing a revival in the North's economic fortunes.

The more you look at regional inequalities the more two things become clear:

1. Britain's GDP per capita is a rather weak statistic. There is too much variance for it to mean much.
2. We really need to think about new approaches to improving the economic prospects of poorer regions.

Veblen

Dave Cole has discovered Veblen and is finding conspicuous consumption a useful concept. I haven't been able to take Veblen seriously since I read Mencken's brilliantly funny attack on his work. I think Mencken's core critique, that once you get through the grand language Veblen's theories are pretty silly, has a fair amount of truth in it.

"Consider this specimen—the first paragraph of Chapter XIII of "The Theory of the Leisure Class":

"In an increasing proportion as time goes on, the anthropomorphic cult, with its code of devout observances, suffers a progressive disintegration through the stress of economic exigencies and the decay of the system of status. As this disintegration proceeds, there come to be associated and blended with the devout attitude certain other motives and impulses that are not always of an anthropomorphic origin, nor traceable to the habit of personal subservience. Not all of these subsidiary impulses that blend with the bait of devoutness in the later devotional life are altogether congruous with the devout attitude or with the anthropomorphic apprehension of sequence of phenomena. Their origin being not the same, their action upon the scheme of devout life is also not in the same direction. In many ways they traverse the underlying norm of subservience or vicarious life to which the code of devout observances and the ecclesiastical and sacerdotal institutions are to be traced as their substantial basis. Through the presence of these alien motives the social and industrial regime of status gradually disintegrates, and the canon of personal subservience loses the support derived from an unbroken tradition. Extraneous habits and proclivities encroach upon the field of action occupied by this canon, and it presently comes about that the ecclesiastical and sacerdotal structures are partially converted to other uses, in some measure alien to the purpose of the scheme of devout life as it stood in the days of the most vigorous and characteristic development of the priesthood."

Well, what have we here? What does this appalling salvo of rhetorical artillery signify? What was the sweating professor trying to say? Simply that in the course of time the worship of God is commonly corrupted by other enterprises, and that the church, ceasing to be a mere temple of adoration, becomes the headquarters of these other enterprises. More simply still, that men sometimes vary serving God by serving other men, which means, of course, serving themselves. This bald platitude, which must be obvious to any child who has ever been to a church bazaar, was here tortured, worried and run through rollers until it spread out to 241 words, of which fully 200 were unnecessary. The next paragraph was even worse. In it the master undertook to explain in his peculiar dialect the meaning of "that non-reverent sense of aesthetic congruity with the environment which is left as a residue of the latter-day act of worship after elimination of its anthropomorphic content." Just what did he mean by this "non-reverent sense of aesthetic congruity"? I studied the whole paragraph for three days, halting only for prayer and sleep, and I came to certain conclusions. What I concluded was this: he was trying to say that many people go to church, not because they are afraid of the devil but because they enjoy the music, and like to look at the stained glass, the potted lilies and the rev. pastor. To get this profound and highly original observation upon paper, he wasted, not merely 241, but more than 300 words. To say what might have been said on a postage stamp he took more than a page in his book."

The later sections offer more substantive criticisms. Take a read of the full article. Read probably the twentieth century's greatest humorist in full flow.

I also share Tyler Cowen's impression that Veblen has been left behind by evolutionary biology. If he had the same analytical tools he might have reached the more interesting understanding that field has reached; Satoshi Kanazawa is a fun, populist example of the genre.

Puff!

Brilliant!

The BBC is careful to make it clear that, while a puffer fish puffs itself up when it feels threatened, this one was returned safely to the lake.

Chicken-Hawks

From Gracchi:

"I agonised for months about the Afghanistan war and the ethics of supporting a war as an adult whilst not being willing to fight in it. There are circumstances in which it is possible to do that- most of the wars of today are fought with volunteer and not conscript armies- and there are people who whilst being incapable of holding a gun are definitely capable of holding a view. One of my best friends was a strong supporter of the Iraq war, but his coordination is such that if ever handed a gun his own safety would be in more danger than anyone else's! Having said that he is remarkably intelligent- to send him to war would be to endanger his life- whereas to have him say as a foreign office bureacrat would be to save others' lives.

The point though is that within Republican students and Republican commentators is a kind of resurgent masculinity- that going to war proves that you are manly and stand up for your principles- that not supporting a war in another country, like Iraq, is proving you hold 'girly' opinions or that you are a weedy academic. That war is good for its own sake- that all problems can be solved through the use of military force. It isn't in my view incumbent on Republicans to go to war to prove their credentials to advocate war- but I think they lay themselves open to the chicken hawk accusation by using these militaristic arguments- by demeaning those that oppose their justifications as traitors, by saying that support for war is a token of courage."

Many conservatives accused Miliband of political cowardice in not running for the Labour leadership against Gordon Brown. They weren't running themselves; "Chicken-Labourites!"

The chicken-hawk tag is inherently ridiculous. All of us with a mind to doing some service to our community choose how we can best contribute to the society in which we live. It was, and remains, my judgement that I can contribute more through working in politics than through becoming a soldier. If there is a war that will increase the need for soldiers, however, unless I think my choice between researcher and soldier was made near the margin that should not change my decision. Allowing fear to prevent you taking a risk that your community needs you to take can be called ‘cowardice’. Taking an unnecessary risk by following a career you are ill-suited for just to prove your courage should be called 'foolish'. Supporting a war that I do not expect to take part in is about as hypocritical as eating a burger made from a cow that I did not personally slaughter.

Now, on to Gracchi's assertion that the 'chicken-hawk' tag is appropriate for those who accuse ideological opponents of cowardice but are not soldiers:

Accussing a pacifist of physical cowardice is obviously ridiculous. Most pacifists aren't in the army so even if there was a war they wouldn't face any danger in a modern day, assymetrical, conflict. Don't call a non-soldier making an accusation of physical cowardice a 'chicken-hawk'; call them 'ridiculous'. Only when people start making the argument that we need to compromise some value or change some decision in order to appease terrorists does the accusation of a lack of physical courage start to make sense.

However, most people who call their ideological opponents' foreign policy stance cowardly are not accusing them of physical cowardice. Gracchi appears to have over simplified the nature of accusations of cowardice in foreign policy. The accusation is that the pacifist is morally cowardly. That they are unwilling to face the moral risk of war, the risk that the war will turn out poorly and we will be morally implicated in the ensuing problems. That they are saying, in effect, "people may be killed but it's okay so long as we don't have to do any killing".

Now, it may be that those who accuse pacifists of moral cowardice are wrong. It may be that the moral risk of war is not worth taking and the pacifists are right to be wary of it. It may be that many or all with pacifistic views on foreign policy oppose war for some other reason. However, the charge of cowardice in foreign policy, even when that charge is made by a politician or journalist is not necessarily hypocritical. Hawks are evidently quite willing to take the moral risk of war.

It's a funny old world

Do you ever get the feeling that the world is becoming increasingly difficult to parody? That it's all becoming one big Reductio Ad Absurdum?

A classic lazy strategy in an argument/debate is to say "what next? you'll be...". The problem is that its getting harder and harder to come up with ridiculous examples that aren't actually in British law. This trends manifests itself most in libertine liberalism and green politics. A couple of examples that have been exercising me of late:

1. The Law Commission wants to introduce compulsory marriage

For some reason people wanted 'equality' between the married and those cohabiting. Now any couple who spend a sufficient amount of time together are effectively treated as if they're married. Leaving aside the serious problem, the massive devaluing of the public commitment that comes with marriage, this is just unutterably bizarre. It's being proposed by the Law Commission, Daniel Finkelstein in June:

"The Commission believes that cohabiting couples should have the same rights and responsibilities as married. Let's unpack what this means, shall we?

A couple decide not to get married because they don't wish to make a commitment with each other in law. Now the state decides that they can't do this. They don't need to have guests, a reception and a cake with white icing, but the rest of marriage - the rights, the responsibilities, the legal bond - that they must accept. Whether they want to or not."

2. Blackle isn't an angry gesture of racial defiance but a 'green' Google.

Via Devils Kitchen.

World leaders unmasked

A friend sent this photo to me pointing out just how remarkable it is. The photographer has managed to take a picture of the most powerful people in the world and make them look utterly ordinary. It is almost impossible to look at them and imagine that the awkward bunch standing uncomfortably on a windswept harbour front are the ones whose decisions shape the grand sweep of geo-politics.


It also makes very clear the risks of the tieless, casual, look.

Guest Authors

I have some decidely smart and knowledgeable, but sadly blogless, friends. I'm going to start offering them a place to post their observations on this blog. The first is Nick Spurrell who has posted his thoughts on the Ealing Southall by election below.

Ealing Southall's third-place failure

So the Conservatives came third in Ealing Southall. This is being interpreted as a failure. It is a failure, true, but not as big a one as it feels.

I blame the bloggers. They hyped our chances to an absurdly optimistic level. (If the BBC did too it's only because they were following the bloggers.)

It was obvious from the start we weren't going to win: Sikhs only made up 20ish percent of the electorate. All the defectors were Sikhs. Even if we got 80% of the Sikh vote, which was unlikely, we'd be no-where near winning (or coming second!). And becoming the "Sikh party" is a stupid idea where the Sikhs are a clear minority in a constituency where, after blind Labour loyalty, religion is the next biggest cleavage.

All of the defecting councillors were effectively saying: "Labour didn't favour me so I'm going to go off to the opposition". That was also seemingly Tony Lit's thinking. They didn't care a bit about policy or ideology. And nor do the electorate. To David Cameron's credit, he probably recognised this and thought he'd play to it with focus on personality (not just his, but Mr Lit's).

CCHQ was second-rate in its due diligence. It should have known about the Labour donations, and if it decided they still wanted Mr Lit, wooing him should have been played as a major defection from Labour. That could even have worked to our advantage.

In sum: a disaster all round: for CCHQ, for Mr Lit, Mr Cameron, the councillors, bloggers, the Conservatives' reputation. This was more like a student election than one to Parliament.

We on the right often say that Labour believe their own spin. In this case, we believed our own spin.

We're all going to get sent to Climate Camp...

...if we don't sign up to big new taxes on hard-up manufacturing industry and good old family holidays.

I saw this flyer at the Prince Charles cinema off London's Leicester Square; at first I thought it was a macabre joke:

Looking at the reverse it appears it is a protest against Heathrow expansion:

All these moralistic attacks on flying can't be justified even under the analysis of a 'green' like Stern. As Fraser Nelson noted on the Spectator's CoffeeHouse blog yesterday:

"If anyone is thinking of cancelling a trip to a developing country where livelihoods depend on tourism, can I put into perspective the impact of air travel with some other polluters identified on page 199 of the Stern Review.

World Greenhouse Gas Emissions (from World Resources Institute)

Road transport 9.9%.
Agriculture soils 6.0%
Livestock (ie, bovine flatulence or farting and burping cows) & manure 5.1%
Cement 3.8%
Rail and ship and “other” transport 2.3%
Landfills 2.0%
Air transport 1.6%
Rice cultivation 1.5%
Food & tobacco 1.0%"

Cross-posted from the TaxPayers' Alliance blog.

Badger Warfare

Apologies if everyone saw this last Tuesday but I missed it first time round:

"UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area.""

Bloody brilliant. It is, indeed, a crazy world.

Littlejohn

A report I wrote on green jobs in local councils was featured by the Telegraph on Sunday and is the subject of the Littlejohn column today:

"In Tower Hamlets, the poorest borough in London and arguably the most deprived in Britain, 58 employees have job titles which contain the words 'climate change' or 'global warming'. Tower Hamlets still has the worst recycling record in the country, as well as some of the Nottingham has 22 staff dedicated to dealing with 'issues around global warming'. The city also boasts 70 'green champions'. We're not talking Robin Hood and his Merry Men here."

I finally got around to watching Littlejohn's anti-semitism documentary that myself and Mr. Eugenides were defending against Greenstein's lame attacks the other day. It's actually very good. A calm and dignified look at a serious problem.

Also, I do know what Littlejohn means about being asked "are you Jewish" when something anti-semitic angers you. I was asked that question when I sounded off about the UCU boycott proposal. I'm not Jewish but find the idea that I must be to find prejudice like the UCU boycott alarming genuinely disconcerting.

Pakistan slides further towards anarchy

Today the Telegraph reports a growing number of attacks in Pakistan's border regions. This is very worrying. It suggests a growing loss of government control. If this goes too far the attacks will start to spread across the country. It is at that stage, when the government is no longer able to guarantee people's security in the heartland as well as the chaotic border regions, that the threat of an Islamist revolution, promising stability, proving successful becomes very real.

If that happens all hell breaks loose. Pakistanis face the dismal future of a people under Islamist rule. The Christian minority face the prospect of truly horrific abuse. The security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons becomes far less certain. Relations with India take a serious hit. The British-Pakistani community becomes even more radicalised. In short: all hell breaks loose.

The army isn't done yet and things still could turn out alright but there is no doubting that things are currently going very wrong.

Beyond Blunderdome

The TaxPayers' Alliance has published a report looking at public sector capital projects that go over budget. The first general examination of the record of government major projects. The total amount is pretty staggering, £23 billion. This creates massive problems for proper decision making, as the decision to undertake these projects has been made on innaccurate assumptions about the final balance of costs and benefits. It also represents huge amounts of waste. Well worth a look.

Greenstein on Littlejohn

Mr. Eugenides reminds us why we don't need Comment is Free Watch. A brilliant response to the one actual fact in Greenstein's piece, his argument that levels of anti-semitic violence are overstated in Littlejohn's documentary. Mr. Eugenides shows that argument to be false.

The rest of Greenstein's article is even worse. An unappealing mess of pointless ad hominems, suspect assertions and half-arguments:

He seems to suggest one should oppose Israel's existence because 75% of Israelis are ill-disposed towards Arabs. Why exactly do most Israelis feel hatred and fear when they hear Arabic? I'd suggest repeated attempts to wipe out their state has something to do with it. Even if it is pure racism is that a reason to oppose Israel's existence? My guess is that most Saudis would be displeased with the arrival of Jewish neighbours.

Why does America's support for Afghan fighters against the Soviet Union make them responsible for what a small portion of that movement later became? Osama bin Laden is an exception, there were more old Mujahideen in the Northern Alliance than the Taleban. Those morally responsible for the actions of Al Qaeda and the Taleban are Al Qaeda and the Taleban but in terms of outside support for those movements look to the Pakistanis, the Saudis and other Muslim states.

This paragraph is a stunning non-sequitur:

"Muslims are seen as backward and reactionary, rather than as people whose lands have been colonised."

Isn't there a difference between Muslims being colonised and Muslims losing their land thanks to trying to wipe out an immigrant population and then being defeated?

Why have territorial changes following the second world war created all the problems of the Muslim world while similar changes at a similar time in, for example, the Poland and Germany have not had the same effects?

Besides, most states are created by colonisation. How does Mr. Greenstein imagine the Turks wound up in Anatolia? Does his admirable desire to right historical wrongs extending to restoring Greek dominion over that territory?

Lee Rotherham for Mayor

Lee Rotherham's campaign video is really good:



I've nothing particularly against Steven Norris but I never really understood him to stand for anything in his multiple campaigns for mayor.

By contrast, Rotherham has a clear programme and some interesting ideas. Not talking about the congestion charge is a welcome move towards a broader and more interesting London politics.

Unfortunately, his programme is interesting enough to undermine his own case. It quickly becomes clear, watching Rotherham's video, that London mayoral politics could be great. Whereas I only had a sketchy idea of which region Letchworth is in till recently everyone who lives in London knows it. The city is a genuine historical and widely appreciated entity unlike dreamed up, soulless labels like East of England; which should never have been more than a compass direction. That means that if, for example, a conservative offered a really interesting law and order platform we could have a fascinating debate that might do wonderful things for London.

London's politics could start producing Giulianis instead of Livingstones. The case for scrapping that seems weak. Rotherham could be his own downfall.

New TaxPayers' Alliance Website

Today the new TaxPayers' Alliance website has gone live (if you get the old one you can wait for your DNS cache to clear or go here). I've played a pretty large part in its design and am rather proud of it. Please go and take a look. With it the 'Low Tax Coalition' link exchange has launched. It can be seen on the TPA homepage and this site's navigation bar. If you would like to join please e-mail and I'll get you added.

The Blairite Legacy on TCS Daily

An article of mine discussing the political nature of the Blairite legacy and its possible consequences has been posted on TCS Daily :

"The 'Blairite' political movement that Tony Blair has been associated with may need to be renamed but is unlikely to die."

Sinclair's Guide to Bollywood

The average Bollywood film isn't that great. There is a fundamental silliness to most of the genre. Fortunately a huge number of Bollywood films are made, enough that no matter how many standard deviations it takes there will be some gems. Those gems are worth finding.

Unfortunately, it is a difficult genre for the Western film enthusiast to engage with. Tartan Asia, Premier and East Asian cinema labels are very much aimed at a discerning Western audience and select films that will be of interest to the international/arthouse or martial arts markets. The two genres are pretty easy to distinguish by the cover art and title. By contrast, the market Eros and other importers of Bollywood films to the West are trying to capture is the large British Indian population. They are both closer to the average moviegoer, less interested in artistic quality, and often fans of Bollywood's silly side.

I am fortunate enough to have some good friends from the sub-continent who are introducing me to the best of Bollywood. I thought that others might benefit from a guide to what's out there. This post contains my impressions of what I've seen so far. All of these are on commercial release in the UK, I got them through LoveFilm.

Dil Chahta Hai

I'm told that this is within the top-end of Bollywood films but we watched it because it starts with the song a friend of mine graduated to. The songs are rare but done well. This is probably the weakest of the Bollywood films I've seen so far.

The plot appears to be lifted from an episode of Hollyoaks. Relationships with older women and faux emotional drama. There's not a lot to it.

Lagaan

Lagaan is actually hysterically funny and I think the comedy is largely intentional. It has more songs than the other films in this list, although pretty much every Bollywood film has musical moments, and they're good ones.

It is a tale of a village unable to pay their tax (lagaan) but being bet by an arrogant British officer that they cannot beat the British at cricket, a game the Indians have never played. If they win they will pay no tax, if they lose it is doubled. All of them, from crippled untouchables to Muslims, Sikhs and an enthusiastic man with a drum are found to have skills to contribute to the new team.

This is a fun film to watch with friends. Laugh and shout "Yeardley!" at each other.

Dor

Dor has an Iranian quality. It's a lot more modest in its visual style than most Bollywood films and I can't remember a single song. A story of two women whose husbands go to Saudi Arabia. One of the husbands dies and the other is falsely accused of his murder. The accused will only be spared if the widow agrees to grant clemency under the Sharia provision for victims justice.

The woman whose husband has died faces the grim and joyless fate of a young widow in India. A life expected to be spent in mourning serving the husband's parents. The other wife befriends her and the emotional climax of the film comes when she begs for mercy. It's an emotionally delicate film which connected me to a situation I really didn't know a lot about before. Well worth watching but not really Bollywood enough to work as an introduction to Indian cinema.

Rang de Basanti

The set-up is pretty innocuous. Young English woman heads out to India to make a film about fearless Indian revolutionaries she read about in her grandfather's journal. This sounds like a conventional anti-Imperialist story along the lines of Lagaan. She has little luck finding suitable actors but makes some good friends and decides that they're eminently suitable to represent the revolutionaries.

Her new friends cannot relate to their characters. They are cynical about India's future and cannot understand the ideological drive and nationalistic self-sacrifice of the revolutionary heroes. However, playing the parts affects them all and they gradually become more and more impassioned to make a difference. This comes to a head when the fiancé of the female member of the group is killed when his plane crashes. The crash is thought to be down to corruption, officials cutting corners and pocketing the cash.

Here the affairs of the young people in modern India begin to mimic the stories of the pre-independence revolutionaries. This is when the story becomes truly astonishing. I'll try not to spoil it for you but suffice to say that after a while I was wondering how it managed to get into cinemas at all. It becomes a direct call for the assassination of government ministers. It does this in the innocuous style of Bollywood which creates an amazingly dissonant experience.

Bombay



This is one of the best films ever made anywhere. It charts the experiences of a, rare enough to be remarkable, interfaith couple who have moved from a small town to Bombay to escape the judgements of small-town gossip and parental feuding. They are an endearing couple and the early years of their life in Bombay are enchanting. Only a Michael Jackson inspired song and dance sequence ruins the atmosphere a little.

However, after a while things start to go wrong. They're caught in the path of the Bombay riots of the early nineties which echoed partition in the Muslim-Hindu division of the city that emerged afterwards and the ferocity of the violence, 900 people died. The depth of the emotion on display is staggering and genuinely affecting. It's a long time since I've felt so desperate for characters in a film to emerge safe and sound from the carnage.

The film ends on a call for a reconciliation and inter-faith national unity. An imagined coming together of the community and rejection of violence. Sadly this appears to be a creation of the film as the riots were followed just a year later by the Bombay Bombings, in which another 250 people were killed. In a way that makes the film even more touching; it keeps on hoping in spite of the horrors it reveals to us.

If you want to see what Bollywood can do at its best, just how affecting the impressionistic form can be, watch Bombay. Utterly brilliant.

Miller & Kanazawa on Human Nature

Some time ago the LSE far-left declared ideological war on Satoshi Kanazawa without reading his work and I came to his defence. Now, a piece in "Psychology Today" provides more examples of his taste for counterintuitive and politically incorrect topics.

If you want to know how evolutionary biology can explain suicide bombings, why monogamy is good for men but polygyny good for women, why having sons reduces the chance of a divorce and the point of the midlife crisis you can find out here.

Inland Empire

Gracchi argues that Inland Empire is a fine showcase of what the symphonic (plotless) form of film-making is capable of. Apparently, among other things:

"Never 'til this film had [Gracchi] seen a prostitute's life in all its tawdry terror displayed so accurately.

[...]

In Inland Empire the tapestry works and in some strange sense you emerge with a sense of wonder at the cinematic craft, horror at the life of the prostitute, and some vague questions about dark continents within the soul- of desire, truth and perception- continents whose baleful power has haunted the imagination of the West- over which the ignorant armies of human perception clash by night!"

My experience of Inland Empire was rather different. I spent at least half the film wishing, in a deeply heart-felt manner, that it would end.

It would seem to me that for a symphonic film to work it has to work far harder than a regular film at engaging you with its emotional substance. It lacks the crutch of a plot that you can be enthralled by or interested in and has to go entirely on emotional impact. With that in mind Inland Empire just didn't seem sufficiently communicative.

Films have, over the years, engaged me with Generals, Mad-Scientists, a time-travellers in conversation with a warped rabbit, giant apes, Mexican gunfighters, gangsters, geishas, ancient heros, Korean slaves turned to warriors, elves, orcs, arms dealers, Mobile Infantrymen, victims of genocide, a grieving father attempting to do the right thing in an infertile world, kings, a man without the ability to form new memories and a host of others. Few of these are exactly close to my own circumstances. The better films have generally been the ones that have best engaged me with the emotional experiences of their characters. In doing so they can provide me with insight into the human condition and provide a more genuine escape than any explosive action-thriller.

I never felt engaged with the inhabitants of Inland Empire (the word character seems ill-fitting). I felt vaguely horrified at times and disgusted throughout the film. Maybe that's what Gracchi is talking about. It seems plausible that the life of a prostitute is horrifying at times and generally disgusting. However, spending three hours in unmitigated contact with that is too much. There have to be other sides to the prostitutes themselves. Certainly there is another side to the life of a Hollywood film star. Engaging with nothing but the dismal results in a dismal film.

Grade and hyper-inflation

This post I wrote for the TaxPayers' Alliance blog makes what is, in my humble opinion, a pretty clever argument. Drawing parallels between solutions to currency hyperinflation and grade inflation.

Business leaders and politics

Chris Dillow asks why business leaders rarely make a successful transition to politics. He offers a few explanations. Firstly, that they just got lucky in their business career. This is counterintuitive and I'm not sure why we should believe it to be true across business although it is clearly credible in financial management. Secondly, that they need an absence of media scrutiny to do their jobs properly. I'm not sure this fits with the realities of modern business where a major position comes with a huge amount of media attention. Finally, the possibility that business success is based upon instincts which cannot be used in politics where you need to be able to explain why a decision is being taken more convincingly. This might be true for smaller businesses where it is more often possible for someone to create success through their will alone but in large corporations a leader will need to bring the staff with them.

I think the real explanation can be seen with another look at the Buffet quote Chris uses:

"When a management team with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact."

The economics of the businesses where corporate captains such as Archie Norman succeed are good. They are running organisations well suited to their task, or at least sufficiently well suited to create success. The economics of the big, politically managed state are bad. New leadership won't change things unless that leadership is willing to change the structure. One can question whether business leaders would be willing to change the structure of government in a way that career politicians have not been. However, the question is largely theoretical. Business leaders have never been given an oppotunity to fundamentally change the structure of government.