Leaving the country

When economists want to know what people think they try to avoid relying upon asking them. Surveys, opinion polls, personal anecdote and other ways in which people express their opinion can often be misleading or distorted. When and how a question is asked and how it is phrased can seriously affect the outcome of a poll. More importantly, people may express a certain preference in a poll but make quite different choices when asked to make real decisions with real consequences.

It is often better to look at revealed preferences; how people actually behave when faced with actual decisions in real life rather than hypotheticals in a survey.

Some dramatic new evidence of this kind emerged yesterday. High staff turnover often suggests that an organisation is not a pleasant place to work. High numbers of asylum seekers from Venezuela suggest that Hugo Chavez's rule is not very pleasant. The Army's recruitment and retention difficulties suggest that the poor management of the Armed Forces is making them an increasingly unpleasant place to work. In that light, the evidence yesterday that Britain is facing the biggest brain drain in 50 years, that those most able to leave are doing so, is an alarming suggestion that things are going very wrong in Britain today:

"There are now 3.247 million British-born people living abroad, of whom more than 1.1 million are highly-skilled university graduates, say the researchers.

More than three quarters of these professionals have settled abroad for more than 10 years, according to the study by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

No other nation is losing so many qualified people, it points out. Britain has now lost more than one in 10 of its most skilled citizens, while overall only Mexico has had more people emigrate."

Why are people leaving? One suggestion:

"Prof David Coleman, of St John's, Oxford, said the brain drain was "to do with quality of life, laws and bureaucracy, tax and all the rest of it"."

Ever higher levels of tax; little to show by way of public service results for that huge drain on private incomes; an overly meddlesome state that leaves people bereft of control over their own lives. Yesterday's emigration numbers should be a wake-up call for a nation whose government is attempting to do too much and doing a very poor job of it. If things don't change Britain will continue to lose far too many of its best and brightest.

Cross-posted from the TaxPayers' Alliance blog.

The Government's Northern Rock agenda

Vince Cable, in yesterday's debate on the bill to nationalise Northern Rock, framed the essential question that the Government are not openly addressing but that is of paramount importance to the question of where Northern Rock goes from here over the next few years:

"May I return to the central question of what kind of bank will now operate? Will it be built up or run down? The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Jim Cousins), with whom I have had several exchanges in the past few weeks, put it rather well yesterday when he asked whether this is the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end of this bank. That question is crucial. It is at the heart of the argument about the business model, on which Ron Sandler will presumably be asked to decide. It is not clear to me which of the two approaches is the better. A wide range of options exists, so one can envisage a kind of continuum, at one extreme of which the bank would be run off and would have no new business. The other extreme might involve a highly expansionary strategy—a kind of publicly owned Virgin or “the people’s bank”, as somebody called it yesterday. Alternatively, something between the two might happen." - Hansard, 19 Feb 2008 : Column 193

The agenda that the Government are trying to slip under the radar is something closer to the latter that the former; a highly expansionary strategy. Jim Cousins provided an illustration of the political pressure that the Government are under to deliver such a solution to the problems of Northern Rock:

"Let us be fair about this. Northern Rock was trying to be a big bank based in the north-east that could take on the big boys of the banking sector. That prospect, from the north-east’s point of view, must be retained. It may not ultimately work out that way, but it must be retained." - Hansard, 19 Feb 2008 : Column 198

Cousins is supporting nationalisation because he believes that it is a vehicle for taxpayers' support to be used in an attempt to revive the busted Northern Rock. Why does he believe this?

Such a strategy wasn't mentioned in Alistair Darling's speech and is hardly the impression given by his rather humble talk of "temporary public ownership". John Redwood asked whether the Government had told Cousins that they were going to attempt to run into reality his vision of nationalisation reviving Northern Rock as a big bank:

"Mr. Redwood: As a local Member for the business, has the hon. Gentleman been given any assurances by the Chancellor that he is going for the growth model and not the wind-down model?

Jim Cousins: No, I have had no such assurance; nor, at this stage, would I necessarily look for one. We have had from Mr. Sandler clear comments that he sees the business as a going concern and is preserving the option of growing it on." - Hansard, 19 Feb 2008 : Columns 197-198

If Cousins is representative then Labour MPs share our conclusion that Ron Sandler's unguarded statement on Monday (quoted in the Financial Times) offers the best clue we have yet to the objectives that will inform the business plan for a nationalised Northern Rock.

"The aim is to reinvent Northern rock as a 'profitable, vibrant and sustainable business'"

This is the agenda that the Government won't yet discuss openly but that seems to be underlying their policy on Northern Rock. Taxpayer support is to be enlisted in an attempt to revive the bank. There are a number of issues with this:

1. It ups the ante by committing taxpayers money to the risky venture of trying to revive Northern Rock instead of taking the more cautious approach of trying to get value from the assets as they stand. As Stephen Dorrell put it: "The state would be used as a sort of turn-around venture capitalist" (Hansard, 19 Feb 2008 : Column 200). The ill-fated Phoenix Consortium attempt to turn around Rover as a mass-market car manufacturer shows the risks of a hubristic failure to accept that a company has had its day and might need to be wound down.

2. Regardless of Ron Sandler's abilities he will be operating a nationalised industry and subject to the political pressures that make the lives of many brilliant private-sector executives' lives hell when they switch to the public sector. Jack Lemley, the project manager brought in to run construction of the London Olympics venues, told the Idaho Statesman:

"Well, I’ve never walked away from a project ever until I retired from the London 2012 programme, and it was so political that I think there is going to be a huge difficulty in the completion both in terms of time and money and it’s much more difficult because there’s so much time being lost now. [...] I don’t want my reputation ruined being able to deliver projects on time and on budget."

3. This will be a massive market distortion. There will be one player in the mortgage market with a guarantee from the taxpayer behind them. This will allow the bank to offer more generous interest rates than its competitors. Potential competitors with a revived Northern Rock are rightly furious.

The Government are deliberately keeping the plans for what happens next with Northern Rock obscure. However, their plan to make taxpayers play venture capitalist trying to revive a busted bank with a wrecked brand is becoming clear anyway. It is a political agenda that puts taxpayers' money at huge risk and could create damaging distortions in the British economy.

Cross-posted from the TaxPayers' Alliance blog.

What the opposition should say in the Northern Rock nationalisation debate

The Government offered every inducement to private sector bidders for Northern Rock. It offered a heads you win, tails we lose deal whereby the taxpayer would foot the bill if things went wrong at the bank but a new owner could walk away with big profits if things turned around for the better. They still couldn't find a private sector bidder able to offer good value to taxpayers.

That the Government could not find a bidder despite lowering the bar so drastically suggests that the private sector didn't expect to be able to get much value out of Northern Rock. We are now expected to believe that the Government can do a better job - can deliver taxpayer value where the private sector couldn't. Taxpayers are understandably cynical.

There are several unanswered questions. Just how strong is Northern Rock's loan book? How well prepared is it to weather weaknesses in the housing market and still pay off massive loans to the taxpayer?

What will we have to pay shareholders? Is there any chance that the outrageous demands for £4 per share being made by hedge funds, who have bought into Northern Rock since the crisis, will be sated?

Bigger questions are raised by the form that this nationalisation is beginning to take. While this is, in theory, a debate on whether or not to nationalise Northern Rock that is less a decision than a resignation that there is little other alternative. By contrast, the form of nationalisation is a decision firmly within the Government's grasp and one that could have vast financial consequences.

We can understand how that decision has been made by listening to Ron Sandler, the new boss at Northern Rock, who was quoted in the Financial Times as saying "the aim is to reinvent Northern Rock as a 'profitable, vibrant and sustainable business'". The Government have chosen not to take the option of running down the mortgage book and steadily putting the bank out of its misery. Instead, taxpayers are being asked to support an attempt to resurrect the bank. There are many parallels to the Phoenix Consortium's promise to make Rover a world-beater again.

Such an endeavour is necessarily more risky and involves a greater exposure of taxpayers' money than running the bank down. The Government is upping the ante on taxpayers' behalf. While there has been an attempt to spin this 'temporary' settlement as a very short-term arrangement Ron Sandler has acknowledged that it is likely to be years before a resurrected Northern Rock is likely to be ready to return to the private sector.

Throughout that period each British taxpayer will, effectively, have £3,500 staked on the future of a mortgage bank with a busted brand. Beyond that, they will have to hope that this bank is really run on commercial, and not political, terms. While Ron Sandler may be impeccably qualified he will be employed by, and answerable to, politicians. If they see some short-term political advantage in delaying, for example, important decisions on downsizing Northern Rock will the chances of taxpayer value being delivered be further imperilled?

There are other costs to a nationalisation that aims to reinvent Northern Rock. It will mean facing other mortgage lenders with a rival able to call on a guarantee from Her Majesty's Government. That is quite a luxury and, in a time when banks are struggling to raise finance, will make it hard for other banks to compete. For that reason European authorities are likely to take a dim view of overly ambitious proposals to revive Northern Rock.

It is a betrayal of basic economic principle and the interests of every taxpayer for the Government to use Northern Rock as, perhaps, the most expensive job creation scheme in history.

Cross-posted from the TaxPayers' Alliance blog.

Obama and the Precautionary Principle

Tim links to some rather... enthusiastic statements from Obama supporters:

"He empowers us with words... People are rushing into the tent to drink that Magic Water."

"He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh."

"I felt this thrill going up my leg"

All from the excellent Is Barack Obama the Messiah? blog. So on the one hand we have the possibility that Obama is some kind of saviour who will reward a vote for him with all kinds of miracles.

Unfortunately, there is another possibility. Kevin Henry suggests that electing Obama could lead to the destruction of the human race thanks to a giant meteorite.

So, should we take the possibility that God is a racist and will punish Americans with extinction for electing a black man seriously? Or, should we vote Obama so that he can end terrorism, global warming and man's inhumanity to man?

We should probably ignore both but, then, we should probably ignore a few degrees of climate change here or there after 2800 (PDF, Box 1.3). Imagine if someone proposed going to war with Iran in case they nuked us in even two hundred years time. Stern and those who believe his "authoritative" report are allowed to get away with that kind of breach of common sense.

Cross-posted from CentreRight.com.

Defence spending

As I noted following the CSR in October defence spending as a share of GDP is set to continue to fall. It is even set to fall absolutely in real terms over the next few years. Massive commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan and now in Kosovo just can't be combined with steady cuts in the military's resources. Particularly given the ongoing scandal of MoD inefficiency.

The Government's standard defence - that military spending fell under the last government is very weak. The last government both started from a high, Cold War, base and never faced the military with the massive commitments that the present Government has.

The Armed Forces are being massively let down. Good personnel are leaving thanks to the conditions created by such an overstretch. The consequences will last for decades. Soldiers are dying thanks to the Government's failure to properly resource the Army.

What is socialism?

Sorry if that title sounds a little presumptious. However, there is an interesting clash between DK's understanding of socialism and Chris Dillow's.

All serious political movements contain within them a great amount of variety. Almost everyone is, at some point, embarassed by others within their ideological camp. I wouldn't like to be associated with every position held by every conservative and I'm sure DK sometimes cringes at things said by fellow libertarians.

However, Dillow's position is more uncomfortable than ours. I can reasonably claim that the majority of conservatives, and libertarians, have positions on contemporary issues that I have a lot of sympathy for. That we are broadly on the same side in wanting a range of things: a small state, a strong nation, robust families and a host of other positions. Chris, despite his claim to possess a stronger connection to the early Left, seems to be on the wrong side of most of the movement on a range of issues. From the size of the state to the merits of a host of lifestyle paternalisms.

I think the problem can actually be traced back all the way to Marx. Even a rightwinger such as myself can acknowledge that Marx had a fierce, if misguided, account of what was wrong with the world - a problem he wanted to see ended. He also had a promise - that history was on the Left's side. He didn't really have a programme. That part was always fuzzy and I've never been convinced that either Stalinism or Dillow's liberal left programme can really claim to possess a greater grasp of true "Marxism".

By contrast, American conservatism has the vision of the Founders. British Conservatism Burke's steady defence of the robust British nation. Libertarians have Nozick, Rothbard, Hayek and innumerable other others. All of whom had a vision of the society they were defending or seeking to see put in place. By contrast, the Left started from Marx's rage. That left them very vulnerable to all manner of poorly thought through or outright evil philosophies that would claim to be the proper way to give their rage practical vent. Considered positions like Dillow's struggled within that discourse.

Matt Wardman accuses the BBC of stirring

Matt Wardman accuses the BBC, in fairly strident terms, of encouraging an unnecessary storm over the Archbishop of Canterbury's words.

His evidence for this is pretty weak. Essentially, he has two points. First, that by publishing the story on their website before the interview they pre-empted his interview and thereby prevented people getting the balanced and nuanced account of his opinions that the interview provided. Second, that the website article was distorting.

I don't know Wardman's background. If he hasn't worked in journalism or politics his mistake in assuming that an article published before the actual interview runs is exceptional is quite understandable. It is quite common to trail an interview a little. A couple of examples off the top of my head that were definitely trailed by news stories in the media before the actual speech: Patricia Hewitt's speech on the next ten years of the NHS and the Dispatches programme investigating the Olympics. In fact, the process is so common that if I read an account of the contents of a speech in the newspapers I will usually expect that it is still possible to go and see it.

What has happened here isn't so different. The Archbishop made the statements cited in the BBC article in a pre-recorded interview. They will probably have put the website story up first on the assumption that people hearing the interview would go to look it up on the website and, if the story weren't in place, it would leave them dissapointed. That is the same reason TPA research reports generally go online late the night before they hit the papers, shortly after the first editions have hit central London. There's nothing sinister about it - just good planning.

So, is the website article itself misleading? I don't think so. Wardman's main accusation is this one (which he repeats endlessly):

"The story was trailed at the top of the news programme with the headline: The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the adoption of Sharia Law in some parts of Britain is inevitable. (No he didn’t, or not in the way that your headline was inevitably going to make people think.)"

The Archbishop did say "it seems unavoidable". The website's account of that, crucial, statement isn't in any way misleading. It was followed, very near the top of the article, with: "For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court." I don't see anything that is missed here. I don't see anything misleading in the website's account of the interview at all. Wardman is being completely disingenuous and I get the impression he is only able to convince himself because he is working from the assumption that people must have been misled, must be behaving irrationally.

There is a real arrogance to Wardman's unstated assumption that the public are just useful idiots for the media - charging at a red flag. He doesn't take the time to understand why people are angry. He should.

Continuing the debate with Gracchi on the Archbishop of Canterbury

My ongoing debate with Gracchi about whether the Archbishop should resign continues. Gracchi has posted again making two points.

1. He identifies what he sees as an inconsistency in my making both these two points:

1) The Archbishop isn't really raising interesting issues. He didn't raise the issue of curbs on speech that offends the religious or the introduction of some elements of Sharia - he just gave them establishment credibility. As such, we shouldn't be grateful for his raising the issue and can, in an undiluted fashion, criticise him for lending the Church of England's institutional weight to the wrong side.

2) Gracchi likes the Archbishop because he has the qualities of a university professor (interesting opinions on 1920s French neo-scholastic art theory, for example). If that is the case he should go back to the university.

I don't think there is any kind of contradiction there. The fact is that the issues the Archbishop raises using his position as Archbishop aren't interesting. Both the obvious examples were already well raised and I can't think of an interesting contribution he has made except to make the debate far more muddled and poisonous. He is an industrial plant discharging into the lake that is the British political debate. Killing both clarity and good humour. His position doesn't allow him to promote debate on French 1920s neo-scholastic art theory. No one would listen, even to an Archbishop, on such an issue. If he leaves the post of Archbishop he will, in all likelihood, go back to academic life. Then Gracchi can have what he wants.

Gracchi's second point is essentially that he disagrees with the Archbishop's analysis but thinks there is nothing that should upset people in it. The only way Gracchi can do this is to present an extremely sanitised version of the Archbishop's speech that removes the clear and explicit attack on equality before the law and the exceptionally forgiving attitude towards Sharia. In doing so he has lost about two thirds of the Archbishop's speech.

If Gracchi is going to argue that there is nothing for people to really get upset about in what Williams said then he needs to address my analysis as to why they are justified in feeling angry. To leap too quickly to the idea that the public are irrational is very condescending.

CentreRight.com

I've been invited to become an author for Conservative Home's CentreRight blog. Sinclair's Musings will remain my home on the web for material not relevant to my work at the TaxPayers' Alliance and I will keep cross-posting my favourites from both of the other sites I write for. However, I'm looking forward to contributing to the nascent discourse at CentreRight. Here's my first post, a response to Peter Franklin:

Re: The left side of the Laffer curve

You rang.

What needs to be remembered about the Laffer Curve is that it is an abstraction of a much more complex relationship between taxes and revenues. It captures an essential truth that tax rises will not always increase revenue, and tax cuts will not always lead to a decrease. However, it necessarily omits two crucial factors: time and the specific tax that is to be cut or raised.

Economic gains from tax cuts will often be felt over the medium to long term. The European Central Bank studied the effects of growth in the state and found that a growth of 1 per cent in the size of the state led to a 0.13 per cent fall in economic growth. Other studies have found effects at a similar order of magnitude. That fall in economic growth won't mean a lot in the first year but over time becomes very significant. Brown's spending splurge since 2000 may have left Britain's GDP almost £14 billion lower.

Different taxes will have different effects on the economy. There is an ongoing debate over the kind of tax cuts most conducive to higher growth. However, the conventional view is that the effects on growth will be at their largest when they affect incentives to work and invest in the United Kingdom. Alistair Darling is retreating from taxing non-domiciles because it was expected that tax rise wouldn't increase revenue - even immediately. A dynamic model (PDF) produced for the TaxPayers' Alliance by the Centre for Economics and Business Research suggested that pre-announced, phased cuts in corporation tax to the Irish level over 14 years would boost investment by 60 per cent and GDP by 9 per cent - and pay for itself within eight years.

The evidence that tax cuts and controlling spending will have a very positive effect on growth is quite well established. Gains from increased growth quite quickly weaken and then overwhelm the effects on revenue of a tax cut. Combine that with an easing of the burden on hard pressed taxpayers and the case for restraining growth in spending in order to cut taxes and unleash the dynamic potential of a low tax economy is incredibly strong.

London talks climate change

I was an expert in the audience for London Talking, a political chatshow on ITV London, this evening. Their line up is worth sharing:

The presenter: Konnie Huq

Every week: Vanessa Feltz and Nick Ferrari

This week: Andrew Gilligan and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Plus a smattering (maybe half a dozen) of experts in the audience and an audience of about forty. We were discussing environmental policy in the section I took part in. Later on they would discuss abortion. It was pretty novel to have a panel show that was so focussed aroun discussion by non-specialists. It had Radio 5's populist appeal. An interesting addition to the TV line-up.

What was even more interesting was that again the audience were distinctly hostile to the greens. I got to make two points setting out why motorists don't deserved to be taxed more and plastic bags shouldn't be banned. Cheers for the greens were a lot quieter and less enthusiastic than those for the blockers like Ferrari and myself. The same divide was clear in the Channel 4 programme I did on the issue a while back. It is possible that both programmes were unrepresentative but it seems equally likely that that support for green policies is still very weak among the general public.

Scrap fuel duty rises

The Times reports that the accountancy firm Grant Thornton and a host of other organisations such as the AA, Chambers of Commerce and Freight Transport Association have called for a planned rise in fuel duty in the Budget to be scrapped. I couldn't agree more.

The TPA report The case against further green taxes (PDF) set out, in chapter two, the case against ludicrously high fuel duty rates.

We set out how motoring taxes - charged on top of VAT - are set at between 40.9 and 3.6 times the global social cost of carbon dioxide emissions. Each motorist is therefore paying between £548 and £743 per year beyond the cost of their emissions.

The only way that the fuel duty is justified is by focussing on all manner of other externalities, from noise to accidents to congestion. Imagine if factories were taxed for noise they produced, if charity parachute jumps were taxed for the cost parachuting accidents imposes on the NHS, if we taxed first time buyers in order to reduce excess demand for homes instead of trying to ensure there is a greater supply (congestion is just an excess of demand for road space). The proper response to small-scale, localised externalities is to regulate against dangerous or excessive levels; the proper response to congestion is to build more roads.

The reality is that when politicians push for increased fuel duty they are doing so not in order to save the planet but in order to squeeze more money out of hard working taxpayers. Ken's proposed increase in the Congestion Charge rate for 4x4s and other big cars is exactly the same. The only difference is that the Congestion Charges wastes almost all of the money it raises:

"Conservative councillor Phil Taylor challenge's TfL's assertion that congestion charging is generating substantial surpluses. He says: "TfL's own statement of accounts show that the cumulative surplus generated from the start of the scheme until the end of the last financial year was only £189.7 million.

"This amount has barely covered the original scheme's set up costs of £161.7 million. Pretty much all of the £677.4 million collected in the first three and a bit years of operation of the scheme has been spent on out of control set up and running costs."

The additional charge for big cars is just Ken Livingstone playing class warrior. Making very productive people who contribute a huge amount to the capital's economy feel unwelcome.

Fuel Duty increases and increased congestion charging both unfairly single out motorists who already pay VAT on petrol and when buying new cars. They also impose a burden on the rest of the economy by making road haulage - the main way in which goods are moved around the country - more expensive.

If politicians accepted how weak the case for further green taxes is and stopped or reversed increases in fuel duty then they could reap the rewards electorally. Look at this graph, from our report on green taxes:

Those consuming the most petrol, and hence, paying the most fuel duty are middle class commuters. An electoral constituency well worth appealing to. Our polling has shown that most people are pretty cynical about green taxes and think they are just a revenue raising measure. 63 per cent agreed with the statement: “Politicians are not serious about the environment and are using the issue as an excuse to raise more revenue from green taxes.” Bashing cars won't improve a politician's image.

Increasing fuel duty is both a bad idea and makes no political sense. Alistair Darling should give motorists a break.

Cross-posted from the TaxPayers' Alliance blog.

More from Gracchi on Rowan Williams

Gracchi has a reply to my post calling for the Rowan Williams' resignation. I don't think he has quite addressed the issues I raised.

At first Gracchi cites a lecture he once heard Williams give about "the state of neo-scholastic art theory in the 1920s in France" that he really enjoyed. Apparently that is the reason Gracchi doesn't want him kicked out. I think my case that Gracchi can't distinguish between the qualities that make a good Archbishop and those that make a good university professor has been bolstered. If Gracchi wants to see more lectures like that he should hope Williams retires, returns to university and has the time and freedom to pursue such debates instead of trying to appease radical Islam from the heart of the British establishment.

Gracchi's central contention seems to be that the Archbishop is getting in trouble for being too intelligent for the British public debate. His opinions on neo-scholastic art theory in twenties France aside his lecture exhibited massive intellectual failings. Look at my original post - why were so many obvious concerns about the measures he had in mind not addressed? The same concerns numerous others including Matt D'Ancona have raised. Some intelligent people are wooly minded but being wooly minded and 'subtle' doesn't in itself make an argument intelligent. It wasn't an excess of brilliance that got Williams in trouble.

I'm afraid to say that Gracchi, and many others, are incredibly arrogant about why people were angered by the Archbishop's remarks. They leap straight to the view that the British people are reactionary simpletons, who are being easily sold lies by the media, instead of trying to understand why they are angry. This attitude is even clearer in some other defences of the Archbishop. I hate to sound partisan but it speaks poorly of many on the Left's attitude to ordinary people that they are so quick to call them idiots.

It shouldn't be so surprising that people are upset by attempts to finesse away the problems with a legal system associated with horrific illiberalisms and torture. It's like making the case for Hitler the dog lover. While the argument might be made for the best of reasons, and it is true that Sharia can be not so bad and Hitler did love his dog, it is still infuriating. People understandably see an attempt to decontaminate monstrosity. An overeager search for the good in a code responsible for a lot of real nastiness. You might think they're wrong but it isn't an illegitimate reason to get angry.

Equally, while radical Islamists are pushing for a different interpretation of Sharia it still rather rankles to see the Archbishop of Canterbury taking their side on the broader issue of Sharia or English law against the moderates. I'll quote Murray's excellent point again:

"I've just been speaking with a Muslim friend who has always opposed sharia law. 'Where does it leave me', he asks, 'when the Archbishop of Canterbury is calling for sharia?'"

Next Gracchi advances the rather questionable idea that Williams was making a theological argument and not a political one so shouldn't be held to political standards. That while he might have some level of responsibility to politics "the Archbishop is making the case for the religious to be able to live according to conscience and thus save themselves from hellfire- in comparison with that no war or civil strife is important". This is very weak.

Look at the Archbishop's speech. He at no point even dicusses the question of whether someone will go to hell - it's a wise choice given that he's talking about someone else's religion - and refers to community cohesion - the absence of civil strife - as his prime objective innumerable times. In fact, his main intellectual - as opposed to policy - case is for community cohesion to be put above the principle of equality before the law. This is small minded appeasement. You can think that is a good idea - that the principle of equality before the law is not worth community friction - but you can't sensibly argue that it isn't political.

I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that your average tabloid reader actually has a better grasp of the big picture surrounding Williams speech than many of his apologists. They get fascinated with the trees and call anyone noticing the wood a simpleton.

P.S. I will write about another issue... eventually.

Update: Platform 10 provide the perfect example of the arrogance I identified in many left wing responses to this issue. I would take that as an indication that the problem infests both left and right but I've never read anything remotely right wing on Platform 10.

Another update: Giles Fraser does the same. No attempt to understand the Archbishop's critics at all. Plus, his assertion that the criticism has been ad hominem is weak. Even if you think that attacks have been hysterical or distorting they have been overwhelmingly directed at his call for a greater role for Sharia rather than his own person or character.

Matt D'Ancona on the Archbishop's call for Sharia

Brilliant article.

Update: From the CoffeeHouse this afternoon:

"The Archbishop essentially repeated what he had already said, while leaving out the incendiary stuff. He wasn’t, he said, proposing “parallel jurisdiction” – although he did not withdraw his support for “plural jurisdiction”. There could be, he said, no “blank cheques” where the recognition of sharia law was concerned – what a relief! – “in particular as regards some of the sensitive questions about the status and liberties of women. The law of the land still guarantees for all the basic components of human dignity.”

Well, yes. But if a devolved jurisdiction, recognised by superior courts, does not share such enthusiasm for the rights of women, who is to say those rights will be imposed? What comfort would it give a Bengali woman in East London to know that, in principle, the Law Lords might one day strike down a deeply sexist ruling against her passed by the local official sharia tribunal? Indeed, might not the problem be that justice began and ended for many people at sharia level?

Again, one is struck by the dispassionate intellectual’s incapacity to grasp the stakes, or the strength of emotion he has stirred up. The Archbishop said he understood that many were concerned by the implacable Islamic doctrine of “apostasy” – that is, the crime of not being a Muslim - and mused that “honest discussion of this was imperative”. What most people will be asking is why Dr Williams wants to go to the negotiating table with people who espouse such doctrines at all.

What the Archbishop did not address at all was what the impact of juridical devolution – official recognition of sharia courts – might have upon our communities and upon social cohesion. Nor did he say why such a step might be necessary in the first place except to refer vaguely to the importance of conscience in the formation of law, or explain further why he assented on Thursday to the proposition that the incorporation of some sharia rules was “unavoidable”.
This was peevish stuff, dressed up as prayerful thoughtfulness. Dr Williams has a lot more explaining to do."

Rowan Williams and Free Speech

Gracchi criticises the right, and me in particular, for calling for Rowan Williams to resign. He makes two key arguments: First, that the Archbishop has raised, and regularly raises, interesting issues and we should appreciate that. Second, that we are failing to stand up for free speech and what he has said does not relate to his job. I'll deal with these in turn.

Even though he's wrong in this case he raises interesting issues

1. I'm not sure he does. Laws against offending the religious were already being proposed by Government before he supported them. Islamists have been demanding a greater role for Sharia within Muslim communities for some time. I don't honestly think that either of those issues were raised or really advanced theoretically by Williams.

2. His role makes him poorly placed to raise issues. If Gracchi himself, for example, had said what Williams said the debate could have been far more relaxed and open. When someone at the head of an established Church says something their words have real power. That means that what follows can't be an entirely dispassionate debate - too much is at stake. Douglas Murray highlighted one of the consequences of the Archbishop speaking out on this issue:

"I've just been speaking with a Muslim friend who has always opposed sharia law. 'Where does it leave me', he asks, 'when the Archbishop of Canterbury is calling for sharia?'"

Do you think anyone would be asking the same questions if you or I had called for Sharia? Of course not. This whole mess has demonstrated why the Archbishop of Canterbury's place is not to raise issues. His place in our national discourse is not as pioneer or radical - that's for those in more junior roles.

He deserves his free speech - this wasn't relevant to his job

1. This is absolutely relevant to his job. Do you think there would have been anything like the same furore if some university professor had come out with this? He is the head of the UK's established church and a senior member of the English establishment. That means that if he says something like this and there isn't an absolute stink that has a powerful normalising effect on what is and should be a very radical proposition.

2. He is letting down his Church. The Anglican Church has seen, according to Fraser Nelson, attendances fall by 20 per cent in the last eight years. If you or I say something that is radically out of tune with the majority of Anglicans there is little consequence. He should either quit as Archbishop and say what he wants or keep his mouth shut to avoid continuing to convince ordinary Anglicans that their Church's leadership believes in nothing they do, or nothing at all.

3. As a senior member of the establishment his signalling that they will appease radical demands for Sharia has a directly harmful effect on community cohesion. Extremists will be emboldened by this sign of weakness. This is probably the greatest harm that Williams' statements have had. He has a responsibility to show some backbone and conspicuously failed.

4. Positions of responsibility to do limit our free speech. A random blogger should be quite free to say "Putin's a twat" loudly a proudly. If Gordon Brown did that there would be consequences and he would be failing to do his job. Even more minor jobs like mine do place some limits on what I can freely say without consequences. Speech, for an Archbishop of Canterbury, is not and should not be free. Anyone with that kind of seniority should consider what they say carefully and use their words wisely as their position gives those words power.

Conclusion

Gracchi is judging Williams by criteria that would be appropriate for a university professor. That might be the job Williams is best suited for, he is completely failing to handle the job of Archbishop of Canterbury and should resign. I'm not the only one who sees it in exactly this way:

Col Edward Armitstead, a Synod member from the diocese of Bath and Wells, was among those calling for Dr Williams to step down: "I don't think he is the man for the job."

He said: "One wants to be charitable, but I sense that he would be far happier in a university where he can kick around these sorts of ideas."

The Beth Din Backpedal

The Telegraph reports that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams is today defending his remarks and insisting that he has been misunderstood. Apparently all he wanted was to explore "ways in which reasonable accommodation might be made within existing arrangements for religious conscience". I'm calling this the Beth Din Backpedal - the insistence, expressed more clearly elsewhere - that all he was really calling for is the extension of the rights accorded to the Orthodox Jewish Beth Din courts to Muslims.

Now, there are implications to the creation of Islamic equivalents of the Beth Din courts. There are legitimate concerns that the rights of women will not be properly defended that led to demonstrations in Ontario when a similar change was proposed there. People can be pressured into accepting arbitration at a sharia court that will not treat them properly. All of the problems I discussed in my initial treatment of this subject still apply. However, I don't think that the Archbishop's proposals were that moderate.

Let's examine the claim that he was calling for an Islamic arbitration service analagous to the Beth Din courts using a series of quotes from his lecture (PDF):

"They relate both to the question of whether there should be a higher level of attention to religious identity and communal rights in the practice of the law, and to the larger issue I mentioned of something like a delegation of certain legal functions to the religious courts of a community; and this latter question, it should be remembered, is relevant not only to Islamic law but also to areas of Orthodox Jewish practice."

Legal functions are not delegated to the Beth Din courts. They are used as an arbitration service just like many similar secular services. Williams is talking about something more.

"There needs to be access to recognised authority acting for a religious group: there is already, of course, an Islamic Shari’a Council, much in demand for rulings on marital questions in the UK; and if we were to see more latitude given in law to rights and scruples rooted in religious identity, we should need a much enhanced and quite sophisticated version of such a body, with increased resource and a high degree of community recognition, so that ‘vexatious’ claims could be summarily dealt with."

So, the Islamic Shari'a Council are already much in demand for rulings on marital questions in the UK - this is very similar to the function of the Beth Din. Yet, Williams expects, and it is implied wants, to "see more latitude given in law to rights and scruples rooted in religious identity". That implies going beyond the arbitration role of the Beth Din courts.

"The second issue, a very serious one, is that recognition of ‘supplementary jurisdiction’ in some areas, especially family law, could have the effect of reinforcing in minority communities some of the most repressive or retrograde elements in them, with particularly serious consequences for the role and liberties of women."

[...]

"Recognising a supplementary jurisdiction cannot mean recognising a liberty to exert a sort of local monopoly in some areas."

Who would describe an arbitration service as a supplementary jurisdiction? Clearly we're talking about something new - providing for a Sharia jurisdiction within the UK. Whether it is termed supplementary or parallel.

"...but I want to move on to the third objection, which grows precisely out of the complexities of clarifying the relations between jurisdictions. Is it not both theoretically and practically mistaken to qualify our commitment to legal monopoly? So much of our thinking in the modern world, dominated by European assumptions about universal rights, rests, surely, on the basis that the law is the law; that everyone stands before the public tribunal on exactly equal terms, so that recognition of corporate identities or, more seriously, of supplementary jurisdictions is simply incoherent if we want to preserve the great political and social advances of Western legality."

Williams is setting up this defence of equality before the law in order to go on and challenge it. Why would he challenge the concept of equality before the law if he only wanted a greater freedom for arbitration services that do not undermine that concept?

It is, of course, better that the Williams should backpedal than that he should stick to his guns. An Islamic Beth Din court would be less of a sacrifice than really incorporating Sharia into English law.

However, to call those of us who opposed his call for the establishment of Sharia Islamophobic and ignorant for responding to his initial position, rather than the result of his backpedal, is disgusting. Equally, in such a position of responsibility Williams cannot throw these ideas around without consequence. He has given new confidence to radical, separatist Islamists pushing for Sharia as a parallel (supplementary?) jurisdiction within the UK and done real harm to the defence of our most treasured values. The extent to which that harm can be undone is very limited, particularly while he refuses to accept he has done anything wrong. He should resign.

Another post on the Archbishop of Canterbury

Hello visitors from The Corner. There are a series of posts below this one setting out my views on the Archbishop's speech and linking to the work of others who set out the legal context. Read those for background on the issue and why anger at his statements isn't just a shallow response to the headlines.

There have been a few good articles and interesting developments on this issue in the last few hours. First, the Times reports calls from senior members of the Church for his resignation:

"A senior Church of England clergyman called today for the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, over his remarks supporting Sharia in England.

The call, from a long-standing member of the Church's governing body, the General Synod, demonstrated the strength of the backlash Dr Williams that faces from within his own Church — as well as from political and other faith leaders."

It's great news that someone is standing up to this lunacy at the top of the established Church. There is another gem in the article:

"Virtually the only organisation to have come out on Dr Williams's side of the debate was the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which said that the media response to the Archbishop's speech could "only be described as a fanatical and emotional outpouring of exaggeration, misrepresentative statements, untruths and sometimes vitriolic hatred"."

Hizb ut Tahrir have come very close to being banned as dangerous extremists. If they are "virtually the only organisation" to have come out on his side he really has fallen into sorry company.

Douglas Murray, of the Centre for Social Cohesion, echoes calls for Williams' resignation and points out one, terrible, consequence of the Archbishop's comments:

"I've just been speaking with a Muslim friend who has always opposed sharia law. 'Where does it leave me', he asks, 'when the Archbishop of Canterbury is calling for sharia?'"

The many moderates within British Islam are being abandoned once again by an establishment enthusiastically giving succour to radicals.

Finally, the Telegraph's "Holy Smoke" blog points out the international implications:

"For years, African Anglicans have been threatening to blow the "Communion" to smithereens unless Rowan Williams follows their line on homosexuality. He has duly fallen in with their wishes, despite his long (and, in retrospect, phoney) record as a defender of gay rights. But now that Williams has said nice things about Sharia, his credibility in Africa will be destroyed.

Anglicans in parts of Nigeria live under what is, in effect, totalitarian Sharia. It goes without saying Williams does not defend the stoning of adulterous women and other charming Islamic practices. But, in his interview with the BBC, his condemnation of "bad" Sharia is deeply buried in acres of Vichyite waffle about the need to see Sharia "case by case within an overall framework of the principles laid down in the Koran and the Hadith"."

Williams should resign.

Daily Mail polling

I think there is a slight philosophical problem with this poll:

It assumes that you can separate the threat to Britain's way of life posed by Abu Hamza and the Archbishop of Canterbury, that they are independent variables. I'd think an accurate picture would recognise that Abu Hamza is only a serious threat because the establishment respond to intimidation with appeasement and the Archbishop is only a threat because of extremists he won't stand up to. As such, they cannot be properly understood separately so their influence can't be meaningfully compared.

This poll avoids that problem, although it might raise as many questions as it answers:

More on the Archbishop of Canterbury's call for Sharia

Two excellent articles, from Michael Roffen (DOC) and James Behrens (RTF), on the legal implications of the Archbishop of Canterbury's proposals, via Ruth Gledhill. They set out the legal detail that establishes quite why this goes beyond the precedent set in other areas and strikes at our fundamental values and constitutional settlement.

I think some people are giving the Archbishop of Canterbury an easy ride because they assume that if you were able to see through the fog of dense language he would be saying something sensible. The articles above, and hopefully my own analysis, show that is not the case. This isn't just PR naivete but a genuine and horrific failure of judgement. Beyond that, we need to stop seeing dense language as a signal for intellect and deep thinking. The clarity of expression in Roffen and Behrens' articles demonstrates far greater insight and subtlety of thought than the convoluted imprecision of Williams' speech (PDF).

For a, much needed, lighter note the Daily Mash is excellent.

The Archbishop of Canterbury's call for Sharia

My first reaction, when I saw the BBC reporting that "[the] Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable"" and "Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion" was that Williams could fuck off. Another pillar of the establishment trying to disestablish British culture and laws and paint those who disagree as vain reactionaries fighting the inevitable.

However, I do like to look beyond the headlines, this is supposedly an analytical blog and I wouldn't want to upset Matt Wardman so I've taken the time to listen to and read Williams' interview with the World at One, read the speech (PDF) he made at Temple and have a good think about it all. I'll summarise my thoughts here. This is going to be a long post and I'll touch on a number of problems but what is interesting is that I've actually become more, not less, angry. The fact is that Williams isn't just another tranzi trying to undermine the British nation. He is also an idiot who cynically substitutes an excess of terminology and a quiet voice for a coherent and consistent argument.

1. Vagueness

This is about as clear as Rowan Williams gets about what his proposal would actually entail:

"I’m simply saying that there are ways of looking at marital dispute for example within discussions that go on among some contemporary scholars which provide an alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them. In some cultural and religious settings they would seem more appropriate."

Now, in his speech he spends a lot of time talking about how the legal system should take more account of cultural and religious traditions. He also mentions that sharia is already practiced in the UK on a non-legal basis, with the Islamic Shari'a Council much in demand. Therefore, he clearly means for Sharia law to be given some kind of legal force. The extent of that force and at what stages people can opt out after they've opted in is left undetermined.

We are left to fill in the blanks, try to work out exactly what he wants to do and wonder what other issues Sharia is to be allowed to decide as well as his "example" of marital disputes. If his thinking is really so poorly developed that he has no answers to any of these questions then he shouldn't be trailing a speech with an interview on Radio 4. It looks like all he's trying to do is decontaminate the idea of Sharia in Britain which will make it far easier for all manner of illiberal bigots to push their own separatist schemes.

2. Missing the point on 'choice'

I can't think of any public intellectual I've encountered who has less respect for methodological individualism than Williams. He rarely gives more than momentary thought to individual people at all and leaps straight to communities. Even when he is supposedly thinking about how people will interact with this system he never really considers the pressures they have to live with.

This intellectual approach leads to some massive failures of analysis. One of Williams' fundamental objectives, coming out of the BBC interview, is to avoid people having to choose between their faith and their state:

"He says Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty"."

At the moment we don't give them that choice. Their first duty must be to the law or they will be put in prison. However, in another part of his interview we learn that giving them that choice is exactly what he means to do:

"It’s very important that you mention there the word ‘choice’; I think it would be quite wrong to say that we could ever licence so to speak a system of law for some community which gave people no right of appeal, no way of exercising the rights that are guaranteed to them as citizens in general, so that a woman in such circumstances would have to know that she was not signing away for good and all;"

Complete contradiction. Williams has people choosing whether to call upon their Sharia or British rights.

Because he doesn't think in terms of individuals Williams shows a brutal lack of concern for what that choice would mean for them. Too many people will face a choice between the legal code sanctioned by their religion, family and community or British law. Williams' scheme will validate the idea that Sharia is the legitimate law for Muslims in Britain - that British law is and should be foreign if you subscribe to Islam. This will enable those who seek to use intimidation and social sanction to enforce Sharia on their own initiative. It will mean that more people have to choose between exercising their legitimate rights and being shunned by family, friends and community.

3. Never asking 'what happens next?'

Williams acknowledges that a crucial difference between even the most liberal Sharia law and Western post-Enlightenment law is the appeal to revealed knowledge:

"On the one hand, sharia depends for its legitimacy not on any human decision, not on votes or preferences, but on the conviction that it represents the mind of God; on the other, it is to some extent unfinished business so far as codified and precise provisions are concerned."

He wants to give the authority for interpreting Sharia and reconciling it with modern life to some kind of authority. Probably modelled around the Islamic Shari'a Council that he mentions. He then repeatedly assumes that Sharia will be okay because there is a possibled liberal interpretation. At no point does he discuss why we should expect that the liberal interpretation of Sharia will be the one that such a council puts in place and what we do if they choose a more authoritarian interpretation.

After all, it isn't just most Westerners that see the true face of Sharia as "what we read about Saudi Arabia or wherever". If those liberal voices Williams cites lose out in the debate among the Muslim community and we've accepted that Sharia is a legitimate source of laws what are we going to do about it? What legitimacy do we, not even Muslims, have to insist that any reading of Sharia is the 'wrong' one?

If an authoritarian reading of Sharia remains the dominant interpretation within Islam at large then recognising Sharia would almost certainly mean accepting that Sharia in Britain will steadily move towards that authoritarian norm. Williams may have a doctorate but his grasp of unintended consequences is rather lacking.

4. Smearing those who believe in equality before the law as extremists

This comes up time and time again during his speech. What he does is cite examples of where radical equality has caused problems (seventies China for example) and then draw absurd parallels between that and the present day. The idea that just because we want to have a single legal code we will not tolerate religion playing a part in public life is obviously a complete non sequitur.

His constant refrain of "and orthodox Jews" grates after a while. I don't know an awful lot about the orthodox Jewish courts but I don't think the analogy is very strong. My understanding is that the Jewish courts' opinions aren't recognised by the mainstream legal system but also the two communities are so different in size and consequence that sacrifices of principle in one case might be incomparably more troubling.

5. Conclusions

Williams' idea is a hideous one and expressed in terms that are insulting to those who believe in the highest Western principles. He is abusing his position in the British establishment to normalise an agenda deeply hostile to our most important values. He is not fit to be Archbishop of Canterbury.

Dealing with the SNP

Great point from James Cleverly, via DK, about the Lib Dem response to the SNP budget deal:

"The thing which strikes me is the Lib Dem reaction to these negotiations. They are calling it "back room dealings" and seem genuinely upset that a minority party (us) are negotiating with the government (SNP).

Well that is how PR government works! If you don't like it, stop calling for it."

Norfolk Blogger's argument that this deal constitutes a betrayal of unionism is silly. The budget freezes council and business tax and increases police numbers. Unless those police officers are going to form the core of a new Scottish army this budget isn't an attack on the union.

Had the budget failed and new elections been called that wouldn't have been a serious setback for the SNP's broader aims - they'd have gained in popularity if popular measures had been blocked and done well at new elections. Had all the unionist parties been united in opposing those popular measures that might actually have done some slight damage to the unionist cause going forward.