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.