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."