There is an issue about private morality vs public service - here is a good article about how US politicians and their private actions should be judged. That is by way of an aside, because it doesn't solve the problem in Norfolk, which is about who makes the judgement.
If it were me, I'd say it is significant that the marital indiscretion happened some years ago. But the point is I am not a member of the South-west Norfolk Conservative association. Elizabeth Truss won't be my candidate for MP. She will be the candidate for South West Norfolk and in the end it is the right of the constituency to select her or deselect her, whatever anyone thinks. Isn't that what Localism is all about?
So what if they are too straight-laced, too moralistic for London tastes? The constituency is in Norfolk, not London. The candidate was sent there from London. Elizabeth Truss works for the Reform think tank, based in London. She comes from the London Think tank world; she hob nobs with Conservative functionaries and shadow ministers, who circulate in London. That's her world, not South-West Norfolk. No doubt she is very brilliant. She may be more talented than any of the local candidates; or maybe not. But even if she is more talented, she doesn't have the connection with the constituency that the local candidate has. She is more likely to be oriented to London, not to her own voters. Imagine 600+ MP's whose views and preoccupations are rooted first and foremost in their consituencies. What diversity of thought that would be!
Moreover, she must have had the right views, according to Conservative Central Office, or they wouldn't be promoting her. Allowing local constituencies to select the MPs means that this kind of ideological selection by a clique in the party becomes much more difficult. A greater diversity of views will surface in the parliamentary party. They keep telling us how they want "diversity".
An MP is meant to represent his or her constituents. One of the big themes of the MP expenses scandal is that MPs don't represent the people. So why isn't there an uproar about this? It isn't just South West Norfolk. This is happening in other constituencies, in other parties. The net effect is that most MPs are representative of a London-based political elite rather than the constituencies they represent. Apparently the local conservatives are pretty annoyed with the leadership, which is threatening to impose another candidate. Someone local would be more representative of South-West Norfolk - even a country squire. The gentry are supposed to be part of the privileged classes, incapable of "representing" ordinary people. But most likely they will have lived in the constituency all their lives. And who represents farmers in parliament? or software engineers? or manufacturing towns? (what's left of them).
It is seen as a scandal that the Conservatives don't have all-woman shortlists or that there aren't enough people from an ethnic minority background; but a preponderance of MPs from a closed circle of party apparatchiks, think tanks, journalists and the like doesn't offend the culture police. Yet it is far more toxic, both for an individual constituency and cumulatively for the independence and good standing of Parliament. No matter how talented they are, or how committed or clever, they read similar books, are influenced by the same intellectual fashions and have more in common with each other than with the people who vote for them.
Monday 2 November 2009
Labour immigration policies, more like Treason
That the New Labour Government should consciously encourage immigration to make the country more diverse, as well being as a traitorous putsch, is part of the tyranny of the "enlightened" state over its people. It is no longer left to the electorate to decide on the composition of the people; instead enlightened government has the right to remake the people as it sees fit. Except they are not that englightened: they were motivated by political advantage and downright malice towards the traditional culture of Britain. See Melanie Philips' article on the Spectator at http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5478436/the-neatherworld-of-britains-busted-political-class.thtml.
New Labour's support for immigration is based not so much on concern for the disenfranchised immigrants as hostilty towards the traditional, white, homogenous, British, Christian culture. By undermining the demographic base of society, they can more easily effect their progressive schemes for a new rational order, based on equality, supranationalism and the rest. They engineer a multi-cultural society, which is so toxic that it has to be managed by a plethora of race equality laws, handouts to "alienated" communities and measures against freedom of speech. The school system has to be monitored for community cohesiveness, the police have to be re-organised so that it is not "institutionally racist". If there were no immigrant masses, the liberal-left would have to invent them, so as to provide a pretext for their attack on western civilisation.
The Modern Conservatives have been very quiet, with Damien Green mouthing a weak, token protest (see end of article). As Melenie Philips said: "If David Cameron won’t raise the roof even over the fact that the British have had their cultural identity deliberately destroyed by stealth, then what on earth is the point of the Conservative party?" [her italics].
It should be stressed that the Conservatives' immigration policy (their website) reserves to the Government the right to choose the composition of the British people. This is tyranny at worst, state managerialism at best. As we discover, the two merge together in practice. See this wikipedia posting on the Managerial state.
New Labour's support for immigration is based not so much on concern for the disenfranchised immigrants as hostilty towards the traditional, white, homogenous, British, Christian culture. By undermining the demographic base of society, they can more easily effect their progressive schemes for a new rational order, based on equality, supranationalism and the rest. They engineer a multi-cultural society, which is so toxic that it has to be managed by a plethora of race equality laws, handouts to "alienated" communities and measures against freedom of speech. The school system has to be monitored for community cohesiveness, the police have to be re-organised so that it is not "institutionally racist". If there were no immigrant masses, the liberal-left would have to invent them, so as to provide a pretext for their attack on western civilisation.
The Modern Conservatives have been very quiet, with Damien Green mouthing a weak, token protest (see end of article). As Melenie Philips said: "If David Cameron won’t raise the roof even over the fact that the British have had their cultural identity deliberately destroyed by stealth, then what on earth is the point of the Conservative party?" [her italics].
It should be stressed that the Conservatives' immigration policy (their website) reserves to the Government the right to choose the composition of the British people. This is tyranny at worst, state managerialism at best. As we discover, the two merge together in practice. See this wikipedia posting on the Managerial state.
Saturday 31 October 2009
Drugs Tsar, that is "scientific expert", sacked
The irony about this Science adviser controversy is that government shouldn't have paid, "independent" advisers in the first place. Why not just ask independent scientists?
The suspicion is that Governments don't hire science advisers to be independent, but to take cover themselves. That way they can implement policy while pretending to be swayed by expert science, and circumvent due democratic process. The advisor will sometimes disagree with the boss, but they will only be hired because they have a similar world view. It looks like Nutt was hired for his liberalism on drugs, which has become embarrassing to New Labour as we approach an election.
In reality, there is unlikely to be a consensus on scientific issues. In a free society rather than a managed democracy, the media would be the conduit for a range of scientific views. Hiring a chief scientist creates the false impression that there is a supreme expert who knows best. While the BBC referred to him a "scientific adviser", the Guardian referred to him as a drugs adviser, the Daily Mail called him the government chief drugs tsar. The left tend to believe in rule by experts. The Daily Mail has a good record on fighting technocratic dictatorship, as has the non-globalist right generally. Although the exception has been control of the money supply by central bankers, which the right have bought into over the past decades: that is what got us into the current financial mess, especially low interest rates.
It also pretends that drugs policy is purely a scientific issue rather than a moral one. After complaining 'But politics is politics and science is science and there's a bit of a tension between them sometimes.', Nutt gave the game away, 'I think we have to accept young people like to experiment – with drugs and other potentially harmful activities – and what we should be doing in all of this is to protect them from harm at this stage of their lives. Surely what society accepts or not, and the costs of either choice, is what we should be arguing about. There are civil liberties issues relating to the police checking people for drugs, so as to actually enforce drug laws; there is the danger to society and to individuals of being dependent on drugs, regardless of whether they are "harmed" in a purely physical sense. It is not primarily a scientific issue at all, although evidence has its place.
A government who believed in scientific evidence rather than information control would sack all its paid advisers. Then let politicians inform the electorate of their views and take those views to the election. Let scientists say what they think also, not because they are the chief expert, because they represent one scientifically informed opinion among many. There will be a range of competing studies and conflicting evidence. In the end, let the public decide.
Then social policy would revert to the democratic arena rather than being the preserve of experts. Government would be improved by elected officials taking responsibility for the policies they implement rather than hiding behind a smokescreen of bureaucrats and "experts". Secondly, the Government, by which I mean the taxpayer, would save money, at least if Government (here I mean the people governing) were not determined to find something else to spend it on.
The suspicion is that Governments don't hire science advisers to be independent, but to take cover themselves. That way they can implement policy while pretending to be swayed by expert science, and circumvent due democratic process. The advisor will sometimes disagree with the boss, but they will only be hired because they have a similar world view. It looks like Nutt was hired for his liberalism on drugs, which has become embarrassing to New Labour as we approach an election.
In reality, there is unlikely to be a consensus on scientific issues. In a free society rather than a managed democracy, the media would be the conduit for a range of scientific views. Hiring a chief scientist creates the false impression that there is a supreme expert who knows best. While the BBC referred to him a "scientific adviser", the Guardian referred to him as a drugs adviser, the Daily Mail called him the government chief drugs tsar. The left tend to believe in rule by experts. The Daily Mail has a good record on fighting technocratic dictatorship, as has the non-globalist right generally. Although the exception has been control of the money supply by central bankers, which the right have bought into over the past decades: that is what got us into the current financial mess, especially low interest rates.
It also pretends that drugs policy is purely a scientific issue rather than a moral one. After complaining 'But politics is politics and science is science and there's a bit of a tension between them sometimes.', Nutt gave the game away, 'I think we have to accept young people like to experiment – with drugs and other potentially harmful activities – and what we should be doing in all of this is to protect them from harm at this stage of their lives. Surely what society accepts or not, and the costs of either choice, is what we should be arguing about. There are civil liberties issues relating to the police checking people for drugs, so as to actually enforce drug laws; there is the danger to society and to individuals of being dependent on drugs, regardless of whether they are "harmed" in a purely physical sense. It is not primarily a scientific issue at all, although evidence has its place.
A government who believed in scientific evidence rather than information control would sack all its paid advisers. Then let politicians inform the electorate of their views and take those views to the election. Let scientists say what they think also, not because they are the chief expert, because they represent one scientifically informed opinion among many. There will be a range of competing studies and conflicting evidence. In the end, let the public decide.
Then social policy would revert to the democratic arena rather than being the preserve of experts. Government would be improved by elected officials taking responsibility for the policies they implement rather than hiding behind a smokescreen of bureaucrats and "experts". Secondly, the Government, by which I mean the taxpayer, would save money, at least if Government (here I mean the people governing) were not determined to find something else to spend it on.
Saturday 17 October 2009
Modern Conservatism, perpetual war
Neil Clark wrote last summer about how the modern Conservative party have been wholly captured by the neo-conservative hawks. I knew about Gove, Hague and Fox, but it turns out that all the key figures in the cabinet have similar views. Neil Clark also touches on how the Cameron campaign was orchestrated by special interests.
So what a Modern Conservative election victory would bring us is more confrontation with Russia, support for sanctions against Iran for what is an entirely legitimate nuclear programme, an escalation of the war in Afghanistan and forays into Somalia (justified by gloopy humanitarianism). And this is a time of austerity, when the middle classes will have to take the hit on welfare benefits and tax rises.
The Eastern Europe watch blog noted how apathetic the poles are about involvement in Afghanistan, a war opposed by the majority there. It also points out the blindingly obvious but politically incorrect observation that there is less muslim immigration in Poland, and therefore less danger of home-grown terrorism. Eight years after 9/11, immigration to Britain continues unabated. The British people are sceptical about the benefits of mass immigration and they are also sceptical about defending Britain by fighting wars on the other side of the world. The ordinary member of the Conservative party to a large extent will reflect the population as a whole.
But Modern Conservatism means you take the power of decision from the rank and file, who are too reactionary and stupid to make the correct decisions and leave them to an enlightened, progressive clique. Who needs democracy? William Hague has said that a conservative goverment would need to turn around public opposition to the Afghanistan war.
It is also noteworthy that the Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) had a presence at the Conservative party conference. At time of writing, there are two postings on the IAS home page. One from Modern Conservative Immigration spokesman, Damien Green, tells the IAS in-crowd that a future government should not follow public opinion. Here Green also talks about Europe-wide solutions. The second posting on the IAS site has an IAS person saying joined up thinking and curbing human rights abuses across the world is the way to fight immigration. Those caring people in the IAS are dispensing a presciption for perpetual interventions and wars across the world in the name of "human rights". Tightening our own border controls and asylum regulations is not the kind of change approved of by Modern Conservatism and its allies. "Joined up thinking": where did we hear that before? Is that Blairism? or Blameronism?
There is a link between immigration and modern utopian wars. The globalist elites, which includes the modern conservative and republican party elites, have given up on controlling their own borders; and in order to make immigration safer, they try to control large tracts of the rest of the world, which are the source for migrant invasions. In order "to make the world safe forglobalism democracy".
The fact that Al-Queda and the Taliban hate Shia Islam as much as they hate West should make these War-on-Terror fanatics think that Iran and the West have common cause. The nebulous concept of "global security" means that all local conflicts are seen through the simplistic prism of Free-world vs Islamic extremists; "global security" necessitates that the vaguest of threats demands a military response from an economically bankrupt and war-weary US and UK. As Ron Paul said, sanctions are an act of war. A vote for Cameron is a vote for the McCain-Cheney axis. George W. Bush was a realist compared to these.
So what a Modern Conservative election victory would bring us is more confrontation with Russia, support for sanctions against Iran for what is an entirely legitimate nuclear programme, an escalation of the war in Afghanistan and forays into Somalia (justified by gloopy humanitarianism). And this is a time of austerity, when the middle classes will have to take the hit on welfare benefits and tax rises.
The Eastern Europe watch blog noted how apathetic the poles are about involvement in Afghanistan, a war opposed by the majority there. It also points out the blindingly obvious but politically incorrect observation that there is less muslim immigration in Poland, and therefore less danger of home-grown terrorism. Eight years after 9/11, immigration to Britain continues unabated. The British people are sceptical about the benefits of mass immigration and they are also sceptical about defending Britain by fighting wars on the other side of the world. The ordinary member of the Conservative party to a large extent will reflect the population as a whole.
But Modern Conservatism means you take the power of decision from the rank and file, who are too reactionary and stupid to make the correct decisions and leave them to an enlightened, progressive clique. Who needs democracy? William Hague has said that a conservative goverment would need to turn around public opposition to the Afghanistan war.
It is also noteworthy that the Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) had a presence at the Conservative party conference. At time of writing, there are two postings on the IAS home page. One from Modern Conservative Immigration spokesman, Damien Green, tells the IAS in-crowd that a future government should not follow public opinion. Here Green also talks about Europe-wide solutions. The second posting on the IAS site has an IAS person saying joined up thinking and curbing human rights abuses across the world is the way to fight immigration. Those caring people in the IAS are dispensing a presciption for perpetual interventions and wars across the world in the name of "human rights". Tightening our own border controls and asylum regulations is not the kind of change approved of by Modern Conservatism and its allies. "Joined up thinking": where did we hear that before? Is that Blairism? or Blameronism?
There is a link between immigration and modern utopian wars. The globalist elites, which includes the modern conservative and republican party elites, have given up on controlling their own borders; and in order to make immigration safer, they try to control large tracts of the rest of the world, which are the source for migrant invasions. In order "to make the world safe for
The fact that Al-Queda and the Taliban hate Shia Islam as much as they hate West should make these War-on-Terror fanatics think that Iran and the West have common cause. The nebulous concept of "global security" means that all local conflicts are seen through the simplistic prism of Free-world vs Islamic extremists; "global security" necessitates that the vaguest of threats demands a military response from an economically bankrupt and war-weary US and UK. As Ron Paul said, sanctions are an act of war. A vote for Cameron is a vote for the McCain-Cheney axis. George W. Bush was a realist compared to these.
Thursday 15 October 2009
Libertarian conservatism should attract socialists, liberals and environmentalists too
"All hope for change lies in a rEVOLution fought not with bullets, but with our minds." Jake Towne
On one of the unofficial Ron Paul websites, http://ronpaulrepublican.com/?p=139, is an article by someone running for office in Pennsylvania called Jake Towne. That's where I got the quote above. Yes it's idealistic, but Towne represents many aspects of the properly conservative mindset - constitutionalism, fiscal solidity, defence of liberty and an aversion to unnecessary wars. It won't solve all our problems, but it is a realistic alternative to established politics, which has left us with a democratic deficit, social decay and a bankrupt economy.
Many socialists are initially motivated by distrust of the establishment and opposition to injustice, and have been disillusioned by the Labour party and changemaker Obama bailing out the banks. The Ron Paul revolution offers a government not in hock to special interests like the finance industry. It's a free-market philosophy, but it blocks the too-cosy relationship between government and the banks.
Classical liberals and democrats should reject the Lib Dems' love of unaccountable supranational institutions like the EU. How can a liberal be happy with the EU-wide arrest warrant? Yet Nick Clegg, Vince Cable et al support it, because they believe that the supra-state apparatus of the EU is essentially benign. The Liberal Democrats support central planning also. Modern day liberals claim continuity with John Locke and 19th Century liberalism; however, Paul E. Gottfried in "After liberalism: the managerial state in the age of mass democracy" convincingly argues that modern liberalism is defined by a faith in progress through government planning by experts. This dictatorship of the bureaucrats, often in the teeth of popular (small 'c' conservative) opposition is clearly the antithesis of the 19th Century liberal belief in individual freedom. Only the name survives, so creating an illusion of continuity.
Some useful reviews of Gottfried's book are to be found here. Or use an Internet search.
Environmentalists who blame the free-market for local noise and air pollution should read Simon Jenkins' article about how how Labour Government policy has been captured by the airline industry. At least part of the answer is more Nimbys - i.e. local residents and awkward anti-government planning types - not Big Government.
On the right of the political divide, so-called Conservatives have bought into the central planning as much as so-called socialists and liberals. The way the Federal Reserve and Bank of England have kept interest rates artificially low, thereby creating the credit and housing bubbles, is a an example of central planning by supposed experts at its worst. The rule of experts is the defining feature of the managerial state, and people who call themselves free-market Conservatives have up to now bought into that.
Socialists who support bailouts for the rich; free-market conservatives who support utopian wars, big government welfarism, centrally planned interest rates and managed inflation, a form of theft; liberals who give more credence to the benefits of the managerial state than individual initiative. The participants of the late 19th/early 20th century ideological wars have been replaced by replicas; by keeping the old names though, they can create the illusion that the battleground is the same.
On one of the unofficial Ron Paul websites, http://ronpaulrepublican.com/?p=139, is an article by someone running for office in Pennsylvania called Jake Towne. That's where I got the quote above. Yes it's idealistic, but Towne represents many aspects of the properly conservative mindset - constitutionalism, fiscal solidity, defence of liberty and an aversion to unnecessary wars. It won't solve all our problems, but it is a realistic alternative to established politics, which has left us with a democratic deficit, social decay and a bankrupt economy.
Many socialists are initially motivated by distrust of the establishment and opposition to injustice, and have been disillusioned by the Labour party and changemaker Obama bailing out the banks. The Ron Paul revolution offers a government not in hock to special interests like the finance industry. It's a free-market philosophy, but it blocks the too-cosy relationship between government and the banks.
Classical liberals and democrats should reject the Lib Dems' love of unaccountable supranational institutions like the EU. How can a liberal be happy with the EU-wide arrest warrant? Yet Nick Clegg, Vince Cable et al support it, because they believe that the supra-state apparatus of the EU is essentially benign. The Liberal Democrats support central planning also. Modern day liberals claim continuity with John Locke and 19th Century liberalism; however, Paul E. Gottfried in "After liberalism: the managerial state in the age of mass democracy" convincingly argues that modern liberalism is defined by a faith in progress through government planning by experts. This dictatorship of the bureaucrats, often in the teeth of popular (small 'c' conservative) opposition is clearly the antithesis of the 19th Century liberal belief in individual freedom. Only the name survives, so creating an illusion of continuity.
Some useful reviews of Gottfried's book are to be found here. Or use an Internet search.
Environmentalists who blame the free-market for local noise and air pollution should read Simon Jenkins' article about how how Labour Government policy has been captured by the airline industry. At least part of the answer is more Nimbys - i.e. local residents and awkward anti-government planning types - not Big Government.
On the right of the political divide, so-called Conservatives have bought into the central planning as much as so-called socialists and liberals. The way the Federal Reserve and Bank of England have kept interest rates artificially low, thereby creating the credit and housing bubbles, is a an example of central planning by supposed experts at its worst. The rule of experts is the defining feature of the managerial state, and people who call themselves free-market Conservatives have up to now bought into that.
Socialists who support bailouts for the rich; free-market conservatives who support utopian wars, big government welfarism, centrally planned interest rates and managed inflation, a form of theft; liberals who give more credence to the benefits of the managerial state than individual initiative. The participants of the late 19th/early 20th century ideological wars have been replaced by replicas; by keeping the old names though, they can create the illusion that the battleground is the same.
Wednesday 14 October 2009
BBC doesn't tell you that Guttmacher is a pro-abortion campaign group
On the 8am Radio 4 News today, the BBC presented the latest publication by the pro-abortion organisation, The Guttmacher Institute, as a report by "sexual health experts". A lot of unsubstantiated figures were reeled out to support this so-called expert opinion.
The BBC don't produce transcripts, but here is the text (with my italics).
"Research suggest the number of abortions performed world wide is falling. The study says that there are no reduction in what it calls unsafe abortions carried out in countries where the practice is heavily restricted. Jane Draper reporting. [Jane Draper:] 'Sexual health experts from the Guttmacher institute analysed official figures and data about medical complications which may have arisen from illegal abortions. Researchers found that since the mid 1990s, the number of abortions worldwide has fallen from 45 milliion to 41 million. This they said was due to increased provision in contraception particularly in Eastern Europe and Africa, but they estimate unsafe abortions cause 70,000 deaths, mainly in developing countries. In N.Ireland terminations are still restricted but some women travel to Britain or abroad to end unwanted pregrancies. A group called Comment for Reproductive Ethics, which campaigns for respect for the human embryo said abortion wasn't the answer and it didn't liberate women.'"
Firstly, SPUC are categorical that these figures are false.
The figures used are highly dubious: what is the source of the "offical data" and how is it compiled? How does anyone get statistics on "unsafe" abortions, which are presumably illegal? Yet the Guttmacher have a history of providing these statistics. The numbers on which the report is based are "estimates" by the researchers themselves. To be fair, Draper inserts "they say" as a rather faint parenthesis, but the figures are to all intents and purposes treated as statistical fact.
And left unstated is the fact that the Guttmacher institute is itself a campaigning organisation. As ever, pro-abortion propaganda is represented as objective and scientific, pro-life campaigners as mere moralists. The reference to CORE is a nod towards balance but CORE are described as campaigners, the Guttmacher people as experts. What would a person who hasn't looked into the matter be led to conclude?
Odd that Draper uses CORE,who are more interested in artificial conception, rather than another anti-abortion group: by focusing on "respect for embryo", Draper obscures the point that many abortions take place on foetuses who can be of 6 or 7 months+ gestation, a practice objectionable to many people who don't concede that the embryo is alive. CORE's response seemed generic also: was it a reply to the Guttmacher report or taken from another context?: there's nothing on their website.
It looks to me like Draper has framed the issue as a debate between scientific researchers and anti-abortion ideologues. That the BBC health correspondent, is reporting this news item is an example of how the debate on abortion is expunged of any moral dimension and treated pseudo-scientifically as a health issue.
There is an oblique swipe at Northern Ireland's restrictive laws, which continue to be a target of pro-abortion campaigners, juxtaposed with the estimate of women killed as a result of "unsafe" abortions. The reporter seems to have incorporated Northern Ireland into the news item on her own initiative.
As Robin Aitken says in Can we Trust the BBC?,abortion is one of those issues on where the BBC promotes its own opinions, although it is required to maintain a pretence of objectivity.
The BBC don't produce transcripts, but here is the text (with my italics).
"Research suggest the number of abortions performed world wide is falling. The study says that there are no reduction in what it calls unsafe abortions carried out in countries where the practice is heavily restricted. Jane Draper reporting. [Jane Draper:] 'Sexual health experts from the Guttmacher institute analysed official figures and data about medical complications which may have arisen from illegal abortions. Researchers found that since the mid 1990s, the number of abortions worldwide has fallen from 45 milliion to 41 million. This they said was due to increased provision in contraception particularly in Eastern Europe and Africa, but they estimate unsafe abortions cause 70,000 deaths, mainly in developing countries. In N.Ireland terminations are still restricted but some women travel to Britain or abroad to end unwanted pregrancies. A group called Comment for Reproductive Ethics, which campaigns for respect for the human embryo said abortion wasn't the answer and it didn't liberate women.'"
Firstly, SPUC are categorical that these figures are false.
The figures used are highly dubious: what is the source of the "offical data" and how is it compiled? How does anyone get statistics on "unsafe" abortions, which are presumably illegal? Yet the Guttmacher have a history of providing these statistics. The numbers on which the report is based are "estimates" by the researchers themselves. To be fair, Draper inserts "they say" as a rather faint parenthesis, but the figures are to all intents and purposes treated as statistical fact.
And left unstated is the fact that the Guttmacher institute is itself a campaigning organisation. As ever, pro-abortion propaganda is represented as objective and scientific, pro-life campaigners as mere moralists. The reference to CORE is a nod towards balance but CORE are described as campaigners, the Guttmacher people as experts. What would a person who hasn't looked into the matter be led to conclude?
Odd that Draper uses CORE,who are more interested in artificial conception, rather than another anti-abortion group: by focusing on "respect for embryo", Draper obscures the point that many abortions take place on foetuses who can be of 6 or 7 months+ gestation, a practice objectionable to many people who don't concede that the embryo is alive. CORE's response seemed generic also: was it a reply to the Guttmacher report or taken from another context?: there's nothing on their website.
It looks to me like Draper has framed the issue as a debate between scientific researchers and anti-abortion ideologues. That the BBC health correspondent, is reporting this news item is an example of how the debate on abortion is expunged of any moral dimension and treated pseudo-scientifically as a health issue.
There is an oblique swipe at Northern Ireland's restrictive laws, which continue to be a target of pro-abortion campaigners, juxtaposed with the estimate of women killed as a result of "unsafe" abortions. The reporter seems to have incorporated Northern Ireland into the news item on her own initiative.
As Robin Aitken says in Can we Trust the BBC?,abortion is one of those issues on where the BBC promotes its own opinions, although it is required to maintain a pretence of objectivity.
Friday 18 September 2009
Geography and demographics: relations with Muslim countries in the future
With all the warmongering talk about Iran as a threat to the West (for a more sceptical view see here), we forget which Muslim states in the decades to come are likely to pose a threat to the independence, if not the very existence, of some western countries, specifically in Southern and South Eastern Europe.
The population of North Africa is increasing fast, while that of Europe ages and declines, so changing the balance of power in the Mediterranean. Mass immigration from the Maghreb into Spain, France and Italy is likely to increase the political influence of Algeria and Morocco in Southern Europe, with more than merely cultural effects. A country like Morocco might be tempted to intervene in Spain if any religious tensions should flare up; or a nuclear-armed (with Pakistani help) Algeria might feel impelled to support Muslim groups in ethno-religious conflicts inside French territory. This conflict could be in the form of rioting or simply non-violent agitation by Muslims for more civil rights, special privileges or concessions to Islamic culture. Ethnic tensions in Europe will as likely to worsen relations between Europe and the Maghreb rather than bring cultures and countries together.
In the Balkans, a populous, industrialised Turkey is likely to extend its influence over weak and sparsely populated Balkan states. The Turkish government seems moderate, but quite understandably it will pursue Turkish self-interest. The old dictum, powers will be powers, applies. A Bulgarian think-tank predicts how Turkish accession will lead to unrestricted turkish immigration overwhelming ethnic Bulgarians; and the Turks will extend their influence in Europe. The US Government, the British Conservatives (in thrall to US foreign policy objectives) as well most neo-conservatives and liberals believe that Turkey can become a bulwark against the supposed main threats to the East, which are geographically more distant from Europe. Even without EU Accession, it has to be said, Turkish influence can only increase; but polite containment of Turkey rather than integration with it will be more attractive to central and Eastern Europeans.
Iran is a long way from Europe. In the days of the Ottoman Empire, Persia acted as a second front for the Ottoman Empire, forcing the Turks to divert resources away from Europe and perhaps saving central Europe from conquest. This dynamic may reassert itself. Iran is likely to be contained by Sunni countries in the Middle East and won't be in a position to pose an existential threat to Israel. The main threat to the Israeli state is demographic - from the Palestinian Arabs in a greater Israel; or even in a 1948-borders Israel.
Iran also has militarised, Sunni Pakistan as a neighbour and relations between the two countries remain strained, according to the neo-conservative Middle East Quarterly. Asia Times reports that Border tensions continue. As a result, Iran is likely to maintain good relations with India in order to contain the Pakistani threat, which includes the spectre of the Sunni bomb. India's rivalry with China will mean that India will be friendly to the West; Pakistan's rivalry with India will mean that it relies more on China, although a Uighur insurgency might distract Pakistan from its strategic interest. Iran again will have interests in common with Europe and America, suggesting a cold alliance. Shia Islam is not likely to be a destabilising ideology for the West in the way that Saudi Wahabiism is.
The population of North Africa is increasing fast, while that of Europe ages and declines, so changing the balance of power in the Mediterranean. Mass immigration from the Maghreb into Spain, France and Italy is likely to increase the political influence of Algeria and Morocco in Southern Europe, with more than merely cultural effects. A country like Morocco might be tempted to intervene in Spain if any religious tensions should flare up; or a nuclear-armed (with Pakistani help) Algeria might feel impelled to support Muslim groups in ethno-religious conflicts inside French territory. This conflict could be in the form of rioting or simply non-violent agitation by Muslims for more civil rights, special privileges or concessions to Islamic culture. Ethnic tensions in Europe will as likely to worsen relations between Europe and the Maghreb rather than bring cultures and countries together.
In the Balkans, a populous, industrialised Turkey is likely to extend its influence over weak and sparsely populated Balkan states. The Turkish government seems moderate, but quite understandably it will pursue Turkish self-interest. The old dictum, powers will be powers, applies. A Bulgarian think-tank predicts how Turkish accession will lead to unrestricted turkish immigration overwhelming ethnic Bulgarians; and the Turks will extend their influence in Europe. The US Government, the British Conservatives (in thrall to US foreign policy objectives) as well most neo-conservatives and liberals believe that Turkey can become a bulwark against the supposed main threats to the East, which are geographically more distant from Europe. Even without EU Accession, it has to be said, Turkish influence can only increase; but polite containment of Turkey rather than integration with it will be more attractive to central and Eastern Europeans.
Iran is a long way from Europe. In the days of the Ottoman Empire, Persia acted as a second front for the Ottoman Empire, forcing the Turks to divert resources away from Europe and perhaps saving central Europe from conquest. This dynamic may reassert itself. Iran is likely to be contained by Sunni countries in the Middle East and won't be in a position to pose an existential threat to Israel. The main threat to the Israeli state is demographic - from the Palestinian Arabs in a greater Israel; or even in a 1948-borders Israel.
Iran also has militarised, Sunni Pakistan as a neighbour and relations between the two countries remain strained, according to the neo-conservative Middle East Quarterly. Asia Times reports that Border tensions continue. As a result, Iran is likely to maintain good relations with India in order to contain the Pakistani threat, which includes the spectre of the Sunni bomb. India's rivalry with China will mean that India will be friendly to the West; Pakistan's rivalry with India will mean that it relies more on China, although a Uighur insurgency might distract Pakistan from its strategic interest. Iran again will have interests in common with Europe and America, suggesting a cold alliance. Shia Islam is not likely to be a destabilising ideology for the West in the way that Saudi Wahabiism is.
Thursday 23 July 2009
Norwich by-election
I haven't heard much on the by-election in the media over the last couple of weeks - one Daily Politics (lunchtime appearance). Question Time was in Norwich last night, but the polls had already closed by then. The two recent national opinion polls, giving the tories 40%+, make it look like the Tories are unstoppable; but 15% of decided voters are other parties while undecideds are not even counted. So these opinion polls overestimate the main parties' vote, including the Conservatives. They become a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially in a first-past-the-post system, with the electorate concluding that the fringe parties are not worth voting for. The polls influence future votes.
If David Cameron's party win well, they can claim to have the momentum to assume government next year; UKIP, the libertarian party and the rest will be cast as also-rans, a wasted vote. The Tories' strategy relies on right-wing voters feeling they have nowhere to go, a captive electorate. This lack of exposure for the other parties will help them close the election down.
The media's tendency to concentrate on the main parties and ignore the fringe parties is good for established politics. Given the disgusting consensus on many issues between the three main parties, which now seems to extend to the pointless war in Afghanistan (all three leaders say the war is worth fighting, some debate on how many helicopters), this impoverishes debate considerably.
I doubt if the tories would be quietly planning to privatise the post office if they had to justify their proposal in opposition to a range of other populist parties. Instead our post office is left to the tender mercies of Peter Mandelson and Ken Clarke, who represent the same discredited consensus that talked unrestrained free markets and gave us the bank bailouts. Repeatedly, three parties agree broadly on the big issues. They are basically saying, "There is no other reasonable or moderation stance on these issues", which is really a cover for a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum: "you can disagree but you have no other options."
There has been so much talk about increased choice and competition over the last few decades. But it doesn't apply to politics, which is restricted to a narrow range of approved platforms. If you only allowed three salesman access to the customer, and made it more difficult for the others, this would be seen as a scandal. But that's what happens with the three-party system. If fringe parties were given media space to argue for their platforms, the main parties find it a lot harder to close down the debate.
If David Cameron's party win well, they can claim to have the momentum to assume government next year; UKIP, the libertarian party and the rest will be cast as also-rans, a wasted vote. The Tories' strategy relies on right-wing voters feeling they have nowhere to go, a captive electorate. This lack of exposure for the other parties will help them close the election down.
The media's tendency to concentrate on the main parties and ignore the fringe parties is good for established politics. Given the disgusting consensus on many issues between the three main parties, which now seems to extend to the pointless war in Afghanistan (all three leaders say the war is worth fighting, some debate on how many helicopters), this impoverishes debate considerably.
I doubt if the tories would be quietly planning to privatise the post office if they had to justify their proposal in opposition to a range of other populist parties. Instead our post office is left to the tender mercies of Peter Mandelson and Ken Clarke, who represent the same discredited consensus that talked unrestrained free markets and gave us the bank bailouts. Repeatedly, three parties agree broadly on the big issues. They are basically saying, "There is no other reasonable or moderation stance on these issues", which is really a cover for a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum: "you can disagree but you have no other options."
There has been so much talk about increased choice and competition over the last few decades. But it doesn't apply to politics, which is restricted to a narrow range of approved platforms. If you only allowed three salesman access to the customer, and made it more difficult for the others, this would be seen as a scandal. But that's what happens with the three-party system. If fringe parties were given media space to argue for their platforms, the main parties find it a lot harder to close down the debate.
Monday 20 July 2009
Afghanistan: how western aid is repeating Russian mistakes
An article on how Russian development policy in 1980's Afghanistan looks a lot like what the West is doing now, written Paul Robinson, an academic working on International affairs at the University of Ottawa.
See the American Conservative website .
It is not just that the West is giving aid money to a corrupt government; but that the top-down aid approach increases corruption, makes the government unaccountable, and the development isn't matched to the economic or social conditions in Afghanistan.
See the American Conservative website .
It is not just that the West is giving aid money to a corrupt government; but that the top-down aid approach increases corruption, makes the government unaccountable, and the development isn't matched to the economic or social conditions in Afghanistan.
Friday 10 July 2009
More British deaths in Afghanistan
Eight more soldiers died today, part of an offensive operation with the Americans. The consequence of the increase in casualties is that politicians can't ignore this far-away war any longer. The Media are now covering the story and the parties have to declare their position, beyond these formulaic declarations of sorrow.
Everyone I talk to thinks it a disgrace that soldiers should be sent to war without being properly resourced. The whole country sees it as a scandal, and whether people believe the war is justified or not, they want the troops to be protected. What is also scandalous is how the politicians had contrived not to discuss the issue until last week.
It is especially scandalous that the Conservatives have been quiet because their leadership is very much in favour of intervention. But Cameron stayed quiet. It took the Anti-war Liberal Democrat party to break the silence. If the Conservatives are supposed to competing on the same ground in the next election, then Clegg wins on this. Clegg calls himself a liberal interventionist, which seems to be a break from the previous leadership.
In many ways, Afghanistan is a liberal war: people like Harman are understandably horrified by the way the Taliban coerce women. But, I don't see how we can supplant an entire culture, without coercion; we are meant to be on the side of the people, not against them. Liberals don't like solutions based around ethnic differences, but Afghanistan itself is so fragmented that a weak central state with iranian, pakistani/pashtun, uzbecki spheres of influence, all based on ethnic ties, would probably be the most stable solution. This would be more effective than top-down economic development (which is likely to be misdirected anyway).
This war is not like the cold war, where scepticism was confined to left-wingers. Ordinary, strongly patriotic people will say that the soldiers shouldn't be there in the first place. The government say candidly that the soldiers are in Afghanistan to protect us from Terrorism, Gordon Brown today and Harriet Harman in Prime Minister's questions on Wednesday. But beyond the assertion that Afghanistan is the cradle of terrorism, it is never explained how terrorists can bomb British cities from thousands of miles away or how you can stop someone from Britain who hasn't been to Afghanistan from committing a terrorist act. Our presence there is just as likely to provoke a terrorist attack as stope one.
Those thinkers who believe the war is a good thing are talking about a long war. This is in spite of our indebtedness and general economic weakness. This under-resourced, politically naive war is leading to the deaths of British soliders, with no end in sight.
Everyone I talk to thinks it a disgrace that soldiers should be sent to war without being properly resourced. The whole country sees it as a scandal, and whether people believe the war is justified or not, they want the troops to be protected. What is also scandalous is how the politicians had contrived not to discuss the issue until last week.
It is especially scandalous that the Conservatives have been quiet because their leadership is very much in favour of intervention. But Cameron stayed quiet. It took the Anti-war Liberal Democrat party to break the silence. If the Conservatives are supposed to competing on the same ground in the next election, then Clegg wins on this. Clegg calls himself a liberal interventionist, which seems to be a break from the previous leadership.
In many ways, Afghanistan is a liberal war: people like Harman are understandably horrified by the way the Taliban coerce women. But, I don't see how we can supplant an entire culture, without coercion; we are meant to be on the side of the people, not against them. Liberals don't like solutions based around ethnic differences, but Afghanistan itself is so fragmented that a weak central state with iranian, pakistani/pashtun, uzbecki spheres of influence, all based on ethnic ties, would probably be the most stable solution. This would be more effective than top-down economic development (which is likely to be misdirected anyway).
This war is not like the cold war, where scepticism was confined to left-wingers. Ordinary, strongly patriotic people will say that the soldiers shouldn't be there in the first place. The government say candidly that the soldiers are in Afghanistan to protect us from Terrorism, Gordon Brown today and Harriet Harman in Prime Minister's questions on Wednesday. But beyond the assertion that Afghanistan is the cradle of terrorism, it is never explained how terrorists can bomb British cities from thousands of miles away or how you can stop someone from Britain who hasn't been to Afghanistan from committing a terrorist act. Our presence there is just as likely to provoke a terrorist attack as stope one.
Those thinkers who believe the war is a good thing are talking about a long war. This is in spite of our indebtedness and general economic weakness. This under-resourced, politically naive war is leading to the deaths of British soliders, with no end in sight.
Tuesday 7 July 2009
The London Times and Israeli disinformation
According to the former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, The Times story of Saudi Arabia colluding in an Israeli strike is a false story, planted by Mossad.
His comments are here on the American Conservative blog.
Giraldi is well-connected enough to know. In 2005 Giraldi broke the story that Dick Cheney ordered plans to attack Iran in response to a large-scale terrorist attack, irrespective of whether Iran was involved.
Based also on Biden's comments that the US won't stand in Israel's way, he draws the conclusion also that the US administration are ratcheting up the pressure on Iran.
To be fair to the Times, the wider reflection to make here is that a large proportion of "News" stories in the papers are the result of a PR, leaks or other agendas. Most news is propaganda and all of the newspapers are conduits for misinformation.
His comments are here on the American Conservative blog.
Giraldi is well-connected enough to know. In 2005 Giraldi broke the story that Dick Cheney ordered plans to attack Iran in response to a large-scale terrorist attack, irrespective of whether Iran was involved.
Based also on Biden's comments that the US won't stand in Israel's way, he draws the conclusion also that the US administration are ratcheting up the pressure on Iran.
To be fair to the Times, the wider reflection to make here is that a large proportion of "News" stories in the papers are the result of a PR, leaks or other agendas. Most news is propaganda and all of the newspapers are conduits for misinformation.
Saturday 4 July 2009
more on Obama
Another comment on the relative merits of Obama and McCain from the Larison blog on TAC.
Also, a useful article linked from The American Conservative on IBD about the effects on business of the Obama plans.
Also, a useful article linked from The American Conservative on IBD about the effects on business of the Obama plans.
Tuesday 23 June 2009
Obama and Iran
"Bomb Iran Bomb Bomb Bomb", joked Senator John McCain to the tune of the Beach Boy song, in the early days of the presidential campaign. Luckily for the world he is still Senator John McCain and not President McCain. But imagine how "Bomb Iran" from a presidential candidate sounded to the Iranians.
The Republicans were the best reason to hope for an Obama victory; or at least to view Obama as the lesser of two evils if you couldn't quite stomach the vacuity of the "Change" message, the the Blair-like (Cameron-like) contempt for the electorate that campaigning on something as non-specific as "Change" implies.
Much of what Obama has been doing on the home front has been awful: Bailout II, the stimulus, massive health care reforms, climate change; but generally on foreign policy, Obama has been an improvement. He has at least reduced the numbers of irreconciliable enemies of the free world. Reaching out to Cuba, Venezuala, Russia, especially Russia, that is good. On Iran too, he has been restrained, but is close to a lone voice. Congress voted to condemn the Iranians, with only one representative dissenting, the great Ron Paul. So politically it will be difficult.
Obama has been brave to resist calls to get heavy with Iran, but even in the first response, there was some ambiguity. Talk of "universal values" of democracy is close to neo-con/liberal interventionist talk, to the Iranians it would have still sounded like meddling, and the fear is that the realist foreign policy of "world citizen" Obama would collapse if regimes like Iran don't pass the values test. Sure enough, when the pressure gets tough, his rhetoric gets tough too. The neo-cons want the creedal nation to fight a messianic war for western democracy, and they can base their call to arms on the assumptions of the dominant liberal ideology.
As for an improvement in Iran if Moussavi wins, well look how empty the colour revolutions of Ukraine and Georgia ended up being. So don't hold your breath. Embracing western-led reforms led to terrible deprivation and disorder for Russia and Eastern Europe.
Meanwhile the American economy is heading for a lot more trouble according to Peter Schiff. It will take economic collapse to tame American, and western, hubris.
The Republicans were the best reason to hope for an Obama victory; or at least to view Obama as the lesser of two evils if you couldn't quite stomach the vacuity of the "Change" message, the the Blair-like (Cameron-like) contempt for the electorate that campaigning on something as non-specific as "Change" implies.
Much of what Obama has been doing on the home front has been awful: Bailout II, the stimulus, massive health care reforms, climate change; but generally on foreign policy, Obama has been an improvement. He has at least reduced the numbers of irreconciliable enemies of the free world. Reaching out to Cuba, Venezuala, Russia, especially Russia, that is good. On Iran too, he has been restrained, but is close to a lone voice. Congress voted to condemn the Iranians, with only one representative dissenting, the great Ron Paul. So politically it will be difficult.
Obama has been brave to resist calls to get heavy with Iran, but even in the first response, there was some ambiguity. Talk of "universal values" of democracy is close to neo-con/liberal interventionist talk, to the Iranians it would have still sounded like meddling, and the fear is that the realist foreign policy of "world citizen" Obama would collapse if regimes like Iran don't pass the values test. Sure enough, when the pressure gets tough, his rhetoric gets tough too. The neo-cons want the creedal nation to fight a messianic war for western democracy, and they can base their call to arms on the assumptions of the dominant liberal ideology.
As for an improvement in Iran if Moussavi wins, well look how empty the colour revolutions of Ukraine and Georgia ended up being. So don't hold your breath. Embracing western-led reforms led to terrible deprivation and disorder for Russia and Eastern Europe.
Meanwhile the American economy is heading for a lot more trouble according to Peter Schiff. It will take economic collapse to tame American, and western, hubris.
Saturday 20 June 2009
Fighting the EUSSR: what will the Conservatives do?
The EU proposals for financial services regulation must put Kenneth Clarke and Peter Mandelson in a very difficult position. They supported more powers to the EU as the way of facilitating a liberalised economic system, financial services being an example. Not easy either for David Cameron's vision for Europe or William Hague, or anyone who hopes that our European partners will be on the side of British interests. The Charlemagne blog discusses Cameron's managerialist approach and the different face he shows to the British people - without committing himself of course.
UKIP show clarity on the issue, as Nigel Farrage says:
See also Peter Oborne on the "Blair/Cameron" pact and Clarke's support for the treaty. Expediency seems to be everything for the leader of the Conservative party.
What a waste. Labour implodes and small-time political organisers have suborned British conservativism.
UKIP show clarity on the issue, as Nigel Farrage says:
See also Peter Oborne on the "Blair/Cameron" pact and Clarke's support for the treaty. Expediency seems to be everything for the leader of the Conservative party.
What a waste. Labour implodes and small-time political organisers have suborned British conservativism.
Wednesday 17 June 2009
Unconservative immigration quotas
The official Conservative Party policy statement on immigration reads:
Immigration can be a real benefit to the UK, but only if it is properly controlled with its impact on the economy, public services and social cohesion taken into account.
Talk about immigration controls sounds promising to the vast majority of people worried about mass immigration, but the caveats are very wide. The statement goes on: "The first stage is making eligible for admission those who will benefit the economy" and "The second stage is an annual limit to control the numbers admitted with regard to the wider effects on society and the provision of public services" .
Immigration issue is reduced to another area of economic management, with a very vague nod to non-economic "wider effects" and a slightly more specific reference to the policy wonk territory of service provision. They avoid committing to the basic democratic principle that the people of this country have a right to determine who comes into their country. Immigration quotas will be set by policy makers in Whitehall, based on "pragmatic" - i.e., expedient reasons. In better economic times, they could be very high and the number won't include dependents. The "what works" mantra really means that the all-knowing bureaucracy will make the decisions for you based on their perfect knowledge of the situation, no choice being allowed to the people on the direction of policy.
It opens the way to a thorough-going managerialism. The quotas will be a similar type of decision to setting the level of interest rates, taxation or public spending. According to this logic, immigration numbers may as well be be set by the Bank of England. They wouldn't dare give it to the Bank of England of course, but it will be some government appointee, acting in the same way.
The annual limit sounds like it is changeable according to economic circumstances. Do they really think they will be able to know what the optimum number will be, even within a margin of a hundred thousand people? Where will they live? Conservatives are supposed to believe that this kind of management is futile, that's one of the things that differentiates them from socialists.
The justice of the quotas idea also assumes that the motives of Government are pure. Conservatives are supposed to be sceptical about that one too. Realistically, business interests will strongly influence decisions about the right number of immigrant considered of "real benefit" to our economy. They gain from the low wages. Knowing that the government will oblige with more immigrant workers, many companies and organisations will advertise jobs at a wages that British people can not afford to take. This will then justify more immigrants to fill all those jobs "British people don't want to do". Companies that don't follow suit will be disadvantaged. The low-wage,exploitative flexible, immigration-based economy with all the attendant inequalities will continue. Migration Watch say that a 10% increase in the proportion of immigrants leads to a 5% reduction in pay for semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Many of these will have a family, or want to start a family.
On the Radio 4 Any Questions programme, which for some reason is unavailable at time of writing (so I can't quote him), Philip Hammond emphasised the economic benefits, as I recall. The implications I am drawing were even more obvious from his phrase. Let's hope the media grill them on this, if only to expose their equivocations. It fits with everything that Peter Hitchens has been saying.
Immigration can be a real benefit to the UK, but only if it is properly controlled with its impact on the economy, public services and social cohesion taken into account.
Talk about immigration controls sounds promising to the vast majority of people worried about mass immigration, but the caveats are very wide. The statement goes on: "The first stage is making eligible for admission those who will benefit the economy" and "The second stage is an annual limit to control the numbers admitted with regard to the wider effects on society and the provision of public services" .
Immigration issue is reduced to another area of economic management, with a very vague nod to non-economic "wider effects" and a slightly more specific reference to the policy wonk territory of service provision. They avoid committing to the basic democratic principle that the people of this country have a right to determine who comes into their country. Immigration quotas will be set by policy makers in Whitehall, based on "pragmatic" - i.e., expedient reasons. In better economic times, they could be very high and the number won't include dependents. The "what works" mantra really means that the all-knowing bureaucracy will make the decisions for you based on their perfect knowledge of the situation, no choice being allowed to the people on the direction of policy.
It opens the way to a thorough-going managerialism. The quotas will be a similar type of decision to setting the level of interest rates, taxation or public spending. According to this logic, immigration numbers may as well be be set by the Bank of England. They wouldn't dare give it to the Bank of England of course, but it will be some government appointee, acting in the same way.
The annual limit sounds like it is changeable according to economic circumstances. Do they really think they will be able to know what the optimum number will be, even within a margin of a hundred thousand people? Where will they live? Conservatives are supposed to believe that this kind of management is futile, that's one of the things that differentiates them from socialists.
The justice of the quotas idea also assumes that the motives of Government are pure. Conservatives are supposed to be sceptical about that one too. Realistically, business interests will strongly influence decisions about the right number of immigrant considered of "real benefit" to our economy. They gain from the low wages. Knowing that the government will oblige with more immigrant workers, many companies and organisations will advertise jobs at a wages that British people can not afford to take. This will then justify more immigrants to fill all those jobs "British people don't want to do". Companies that don't follow suit will be disadvantaged. The low-wage,
On the Radio 4 Any Questions programme, which for some reason is unavailable at time of writing (so I can't quote him), Philip Hammond emphasised the economic benefits, as I recall. The implications I am drawing were even more obvious from his phrase. Let's hope the media grill them on this, if only to expose their equivocations. It fits with everything that Peter Hitchens has been saying.
Wednesday 3 June 2009
Vote for Liberal democrats is unchristian
The Liberal Democrats support the right to abortion as part of party policy after a conference vote in 1992. In doing so, the party stopped being officially neutral on the issue and leaving it to the individual conscience of MPs. This is why David Lord Alton left in the 1980's, he is now a cross-bench MP. To stand as a Liberal Democrat MP or councillor, to even be a member of their party, is to implicitly support a right to abortion.
The logic is clear, the party's policy is in conflict with Catholic teaching; but the bishops are quiet on this. One suspects this is partly due to the influence of liberal ideas in the hierarchy, but a more respectable reason is that the Catholic Church wants to avoid being too involved in party politics.
All very well, but Catholic commentators at least should take on the implications of the irreconcilable difference between Lib Dem policy and the duty of Catholics not to support abortion. It is the same as the Amnesty International case.
Reconciling support for a given party and Christian principles is a difficult issue, given that Christ did not mandate a set of rules to govern our lives. Christian leaders from many denominations argue that the BNP is anti-Christian, probably a counter-productive move. True conservatives, like Peter Hitchens, argue that supporting the BNP is incompatible with Christianity. No-one can accuse him of trying to be "relevant in changing times" or of greasing up to our politically correct masters, something that you can't say for the Catholic or Anglican hierarchies.
The Catholic press spouts the usual pieties. In the May 31, 2009 edition of the Catholic Times Christopher Graffius went through the voting options for good Catholics, starting with the obligatory "I would hope that no Catholic would vote for the racist British National party". Yes, but this isn't an argument: just crying "racist" is looking increasingly inadequate, given the damage that immigration is doing.
He goes further than this though: UKIP is a "dud choice" because "The church has always opposed petty nationalism". So, according to Graffius, supporting unaccountable bureaucracies and showing contempt for referendum results is OK? The Greens "advocate a population policy. A prominent advisor of theirs, Jonathan Porritt, recently backed a two-child limit for families", which is anti-life; I agree with him, but this is not quite the same as advocating abortion, although I'm sure the Greens, with their extreme liberal social policies, support abortion rights.
He continues. The Christian parties are overwhelmingly protestant and exclusive because non-Christians can not stand; I remember a Muslim stood for a Christian party in Scotland, but Graffius may well be right about the Christian party and the Christian Peple's Alliance, whom he uses as an example. But not about the Scottish Christian party".
Of the main parties, the Conservatives, as Graffius says, are no longer allied with Christian Democrats in the European parliament: "You could hold your nose when voting Tory on the basis that it would support Christian Democracy overall". The Christian Democratic parties support Christianity's place in Europe, but in the end they go with the tide. An overview of the debate is here.
Graffius bases his prescriptions on arbitrary reasons, inspired by the pious social-action, right-on version of Christianity that is becoming increasingly prevalent in the Catholic press. This philosophy has taken over "The Universe" entirely.
He doesn't mention Labour or the Liberal Democrats. So presumably these parties don't meet with his disapproval. But since Labour MPs voted overwhelmingly to keep the current abortion laws last year and the Liberal Democrats support abortion as a matter of party policy, forestalling individual choice, I find this rather shocking from a supposedly Catholic-minded commentator in a Catholic paper.
He suggests at the end making a pro-life on the ballot paper, so I don't accuse him of not caring about abortion; however, his silence on the pro-life record of the left-of-centre main parties is symptomatic of the way that the new piety of these social action Christians , while full of pursed-lipped disdain for "petty nationalism" of respectable right-wing parties like UKIP, makes them pass over the anti-Christian nature of the leftist political movements to which they want tosubordinate ally the Catholic Church.
Cross-posted on Christianity in the West
The logic is clear, the party's policy is in conflict with Catholic teaching; but the bishops are quiet on this. One suspects this is partly due to the influence of liberal ideas in the hierarchy, but a more respectable reason is that the Catholic Church wants to avoid being too involved in party politics.
All very well, but Catholic commentators at least should take on the implications of the irreconcilable difference between Lib Dem policy and the duty of Catholics not to support abortion. It is the same as the Amnesty International case.
Reconciling support for a given party and Christian principles is a difficult issue, given that Christ did not mandate a set of rules to govern our lives. Christian leaders from many denominations argue that the BNP is anti-Christian, probably a counter-productive move. True conservatives, like Peter Hitchens, argue that supporting the BNP is incompatible with Christianity. No-one can accuse him of trying to be "relevant in changing times" or of greasing up to our politically correct masters, something that you can't say for the Catholic or Anglican hierarchies.
The Catholic press spouts the usual pieties. In the May 31, 2009 edition of the Catholic Times Christopher Graffius went through the voting options for good Catholics, starting with the obligatory "I would hope that no Catholic would vote for the racist British National party". Yes, but this isn't an argument: just crying "racist" is looking increasingly inadequate, given the damage that immigration is doing.
He goes further than this though: UKIP is a "dud choice" because "The church has always opposed petty nationalism". So, according to Graffius, supporting unaccountable bureaucracies and showing contempt for referendum results is OK? The Greens "advocate a population policy. A prominent advisor of theirs, Jonathan Porritt, recently backed a two-child limit for families", which is anti-life; I agree with him, but this is not quite the same as advocating abortion, although I'm sure the Greens, with their extreme liberal social policies, support abortion rights.
He continues. The Christian parties are overwhelmingly protestant and exclusive because non-Christians can not stand; I remember a Muslim stood for a Christian party in Scotland, but Graffius may well be right about the Christian party and the Christian Peple's Alliance, whom he uses as an example. But not about the Scottish Christian party".
Of the main parties, the Conservatives, as Graffius says, are no longer allied with Christian Democrats in the European parliament: "You could hold your nose when voting Tory on the basis that it would support Christian Democracy overall". The Christian Democratic parties support Christianity's place in Europe, but in the end they go with the tide. An overview of the debate is here.
Graffius bases his prescriptions on arbitrary reasons, inspired by the pious social-action, right-on version of Christianity that is becoming increasingly prevalent in the Catholic press. This philosophy has taken over "The Universe" entirely.
He doesn't mention Labour or the Liberal Democrats. So presumably these parties don't meet with his disapproval. But since Labour MPs voted overwhelmingly to keep the current abortion laws last year and the Liberal Democrats support abortion as a matter of party policy, forestalling individual choice, I find this rather shocking from a supposedly Catholic-minded commentator in a Catholic paper.
He suggests at the end making a pro-life on the ballot paper, so I don't accuse him of not caring about abortion; however, his silence on the pro-life record of the left-of-centre main parties is symptomatic of the way that the new piety of these social action Christians , while full of pursed-lipped disdain for "petty nationalism" of respectable right-wing parties like UKIP, makes them pass over the anti-Christian nature of the leftist political movements to which they want to
Cross-posted on Christianity in the West
Monday 1 June 2009
Where the right is still going wrong
Read on article on The National Interest website against the strategic idiocy of preventative war and the obsession with biffing on the head every bad guy who pops up and says "boo".
The present reliance on warfare to defend the free world is counter-productive, but it is eroding civil liberties and sucking out its economic lifeblood. Not that the US has much of an economy left.
Toneo-conservatives jacobins and those swayed by them, torture is OK, many right-of-centre people go along with it. They vote for corporate republicans and fake conservatives.
The Republicans deserve to lose in 2012 if they continue to be dominated by the war-party. If they don't change, what is the point of the Rebublicans? They don't defend conservatism or liberty; the Obama administration is as interventionist as Bush. So Americans may as well vote Democrat if they want to bomb civilians and trash the freedoms they inherited as their birthright.
The present reliance on warfare to defend the free world is counter-productive, but it is eroding civil liberties and sucking out its economic lifeblood. Not that the US has much of an economy left.
To
The Republicans deserve to lose in 2012 if they continue to be dominated by the war-party. If they don't change, what is the point of the Rebublicans? They don't defend conservatism or liberty; the Obama administration is as interventionist as Bush. So Americans may as well vote Democrat if they want to bomb civilians and trash the freedoms they inherited as their birthright.
Sunday 31 May 2009
MPs and democracy: more MPs means more people-power
David Cameron, before the MPs' expenses row, had suggested reducing MP numbers by 10% on the grounds of increasing efficiency. A reduction in numbers wouldn't be noticed, he said, as happened when the number of Scottish MSPs were cut back. However, Christopher Caldwell noted in this weekend's Financial Times that congressmen in the US represent on average 750,000 electors compared to British MPs representing an average of 100,000, so British MPs, he says, are closer to the people.
Less MPs, as proposed by Cameron, means on average more voters per constituency, therefore greater distance between MPs and individual voters. Secondly, larger constituencies leads to more voters trapped in constituencies that their preferred candidate has no hope of winning (this is a problem with first-past-the-post, yet PR serves the party machines by cutting the link between MP and constituency). Third, lobbyists are very efficient at commandeering the votes of the relatively few US politicians.
And is "efficiency" the criterion we should be applying to democratic repesentation?
So I propose more MPs. Specifically we should double the number to 1,300 or so.
This would mean:
What I'm saying is against the conventional wisdom. To many wiseheads, reducing MPs has a modernising, cutting-a-swathe-through-old-habits-and-ways-of-doing-it air: less elected representatives means more "efficiency", saving on wages (they're a waste of space anyway, you'll say), more room to sit down in the commons - so the "cream", the really talented guardians of our democracy, who rise to the top byparty patronage shining merit and get elected to their privileged seat, can be a bit more comfy.
In part answer to that, we could save money by paying them less, a blow against the professionalisation of what should be public service. But more to the point, how, exactly, is reducing MPs meant to serve democracy?
People will say that more MPs make parliamentary democracy more unwieldy; but what's wrong with that? The problem with government today is that too few people are involved in the decision-making, resulting in poorly thought-out legislation, and narrow ideology triumphing over the concerns of the electorate. This is less effective law-making, probably in direct proportion to the gain in expediency. We need more unwieldiness, slower decision-making, more argument, more scrutiny, more diverse interests chipping in. Heaven forbid, it could mean less laws being passed!
The downside is that more MPs would be anonymous to the media; but apart from party leaders and a handful of "star" MP's, this is true anyway, so this is not much of a downside at all. The House of Commons chamber doesn't have capacity for the existing number, so some have to stand; more MPs makes this more difficult. A good old-fashioned British compromise would be to halve the increase, so we have approximately 975 MPs, although this would weaken the impact.
But I'm sure they could find a way, if the principle was accepted that a greater number of MPs was a more accountable and effective way of representing voters.
Less MPs, as proposed by Cameron, means on average more voters per constituency, therefore greater distance between MPs and individual voters. Secondly, larger constituencies leads to more voters trapped in constituencies that their preferred candidate has no hope of winning (this is a problem with first-past-the-post, yet PR serves the party machines by cutting the link between MP and constituency). Third, lobbyists are very efficient at commandeering the votes of the relatively few US politicians.
And is "efficiency" the criterion we should be applying to democratic repesentation?
So I propose more MPs. Specifically we should double the number to 1,300 or so.
This would mean:
- MPs are closer to individual electors, therefore more accountable, more representative, better known as individuals to the people who vote for them. Their connection to local interests would be stronger, their sense of obligation to serve their constituents would be greater. An organised party electoral machine would be less of a factor in getting a candidate elected.
- More MPs in parliament means a lower proportion of elected MPs will serve in the executive; the chances of advancement will be considerably lessened. Many MPs will be less inclined to try to please party leaders, because they will not expect preferment or will have given up hoping.
- More MPs mean it is more difficult for lobbyists to target them. The effectiveness of lobbyists blights American democracy, no doubt due in part to the low proportion of representatives in relation to the population.
- We could expect to see more independent MPs in parliament, representing local interests. More ethnic minority or religion-based parties, more save-the-local hospital candidates. That is diversity mandated by electors, not "A" lists.
What I'm saying is against the conventional wisdom. To many wiseheads, reducing MPs has a modernising, cutting-a-swathe-through-old-habits-and-ways-of-doing-it air: less elected representatives means more "efficiency", saving on wages (they're a waste of space anyway, you'll say), more room to sit down in the commons - so the "cream", the really talented guardians of our democracy, who rise to the top by
In part answer to that, we could save money by paying them less, a blow against the professionalisation of what should be public service. But more to the point, how, exactly, is reducing MPs meant to serve democracy?
People will say that more MPs make parliamentary democracy more unwieldy; but what's wrong with that? The problem with government today is that too few people are involved in the decision-making, resulting in poorly thought-out legislation, and narrow ideology triumphing over the concerns of the electorate. This is less effective law-making, probably in direct proportion to the gain in expediency. We need more unwieldiness, slower decision-making, more argument, more scrutiny, more diverse interests chipping in. Heaven forbid, it could mean less laws being passed!
The downside is that more MPs would be anonymous to the media; but apart from party leaders and a handful of "star" MP's, this is true anyway, so this is not much of a downside at all. The House of Commons chamber doesn't have capacity for the existing number, so some have to stand; more MPs makes this more difficult. A good old-fashioned British compromise would be to halve the increase, so we have approximately 975 MPs, although this would weaken the impact.
But I'm sure they could find a way, if the principle was accepted that a greater number of MPs was a more accountable and effective way of representing voters.
Saturday 30 May 2009
MPs' expenses: parliamentary responsibility
So where is the justice in the resignation of the speaker? What has been gained, in terms of reforming parliament?
Even if Michael Martin was not a good speaker, theexpenses scandal preceded his speakership; there was a collective failure of MPs over many years. If he should have gone, he should have gone later; the honourable course of action was for members of the House of Commons collectively to take the blame, and responsibility.
In an ideal world, and it is ideal given where we are, a parliamentary debate would have been the highlight of the crisis. After this we might have seen the speaker, as house leader, apologise to the people. The party leaders would have the status of individual MPs; they would have deliberately stayed in the background as they are supposed to do for votes on matters of conscience. This is because Parliament is sovereign, which people forget. Such constitutional niceties will be seen today as hopelessly unrealistic ...
Would MPs have voted for a reduction in pay starting after the next election? Part of the answer is the de-professionalisation of parliament, as Charles Moore is saying. The left won't vote for that and maybe the conservatives in their present form won't either; but in a general election, those candidates might have an advantage, who argue that being an MP is a public service, not a job. Lowering MPs' wages would help facilitate the demise of the professional political class.
The fact that the resignation followed a meeting of party leaders shows where the power lies. You might say with the people ultimately; but what they see is determined by the media, whose propensity is to reduce political stories to what key individuals say and (say that they) think; the opinions of the leaders are given disproportionate weight. The voters rage about corrupt politics; party establishments calculate electoral advantage and apply their preferred "change agenda" as panacea, or try to.
Even if Michael Martin was not a good speaker, theexpenses scandal preceded his speakership; there was a collective failure of MPs over many years. If he should have gone, he should have gone later; the honourable course of action was for members of the House of Commons collectively to take the blame, and responsibility.
In an ideal world, and it is ideal given where we are, a parliamentary debate would have been the highlight of the crisis. After this we might have seen the speaker, as house leader, apologise to the people. The party leaders would have the status of individual MPs; they would have deliberately stayed in the background as they are supposed to do for votes on matters of conscience. This is because Parliament is sovereign, which people forget. Such constitutional niceties will be seen today as hopelessly unrealistic ...
Would MPs have voted for a reduction in pay starting after the next election? Part of the answer is the de-professionalisation of parliament, as Charles Moore is saying. The left won't vote for that and maybe the conservatives in their present form won't either; but in a general election, those candidates might have an advantage, who argue that being an MP is a public service, not a job. Lowering MPs' wages would help facilitate the demise of the professional political class.
The fact that the resignation followed a meeting of party leaders shows where the power lies. You might say with the people ultimately; but what they see is determined by the media, whose propensity is to reduce political stories to what key individuals say and (say that they) think; the opinions of the leaders are given disproportionate weight. The voters rage about corrupt politics; party establishments calculate electoral advantage and apply their preferred "change agenda" as panacea, or try to.
Monday 18 May 2009
MPs' expenses 4: solving the issues that beset our great democracy
Mr Clegg was showing decisive moral leadership on Sunday TV with his principled call to remove that horrible Mr Martin. His solutions in the Observer are innovative and inspiring: "We must finally haul our politics from the 19th Century into the 21st."
To think that MPs expenses went back to the 19th Century. This is breaking the mould of the corrupt political system. You see the scandal had nothing to do with Mr Clegg or any of the others, it was all the speaker's fault.
What courage he displayed, in a world of cynical manipulation of the agenda by politicians, and easy fixes, to go on Television, and put the blame where it really lies - with thatscapegoat bad man. For the election, I'm going to vote Lib dem, because they are a nice party. Or maybe the greens, I like the environment, they're nice and fluffy too.
To think that MPs expenses went back to the 19th Century. This is breaking the mould of the corrupt political system. You see the scandal had nothing to do with Mr Clegg or any of the others, it was all the speaker's fault.
What courage he displayed, in a world of cynical manipulation of the agenda by politicians, and easy fixes, to go on Television, and put the blame where it really lies - with that
Friday 15 May 2009
MPs' expenses 3: the scandal is how they select the parliamentary candidates
Consider David Cameron's modernising agenda and compare it to the All women shortlists for 1997. At the time, the Labour shortlist was seen as an advance for sexual equality and garnered some good PR plaudits from the liberal press, however the Blair Babes were very disappointing as MPs. Many thought they were promoted because they were women rather than because they were good enough. They were also known for their loyalty to the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, failing thereby to adequately scrutinise legislation in a Parliament with an overwhelming Labour majority.
For the coming 2010 election and no doubt the 2009 Euro-election too, the “A” list (or equivalent) of Conservative MP's will be largely imposed by Conservative Central Office in preference to local candidates, with detriment to the democratic process after the next election.
“A” list Tory candidates will be chosen because the leadership finds them congenial; and of course they will be loyal to the Central Party machine that ensured their appointment, partly for career reasons but also because they would not have been appointed if they had the wrong views. They won't have much connection to the constituency or to the voters who elect the MP based on party colours. Those local candidates who are selected, will still have been vetted for ideological correctness. Anyone not modern or progessive enough on the key issues will be seen as a potential liability - and awkward to boot.
Cameron wants to "detoxify" the Tory brand by burning incense with the equality and diversity priesthood. A key part of this strategy is about avoiding being seen as exclusively white, male, Christian, heterosexual. Consequently the new parliamentary cohort will be diverse in sex, sexuality, religion, ethnicity; however, because this more representative social mix will have been largely imposed, cutting out the democratic process in the constituencies, they will have little real connection with the area they represent. They will be approved by a few people close to the leader, and so one can expect them to be homogeneous in their opinions and hygienic in their attitudes – especially on all the politically correct issues that the media likes to judge political figures by. Within a certain tolerance threshold of course; they won't agree exactly on every issue; but they will have a similar world view, much more so than in political parties of the past. They will be a batch of mass-produced talking heads, parroting the views of the Tory front bench. It doesn't matter what race, religion, sex or sexuality a placeman (or placewoman) is; they will represent the views of the leader rather than the people they are supposed to exemplify. The Labour women in Parliament were not very representative of stay-at-home mothers - by definition; and we saw it in the legislative agenda. The "Diversity" agenda will help to legitimise the lack of accountability to the electorate, even if it only applies to a proportion of "A" list candidates.
Rather than the Tories being detoxified, they will be ideologically cleansed. The toxicity will remain because the electorate will quickly realise that their MPs don't speak for them at all. No doubt there will be a few brave dissenters, who increase in numbers over the years; but most will be largely compliant, loyal to only the voters that count, David Cameron and his close associates. I hope it won't be as pronounced as that; but that is the way political patronage works. Professional journalists from the MSM should take time to investigate the matter, and give the electorate a chance to see what kind of candidates they will be voting for.
Lord Tebbit thought himself regarded by the leadership as too unhygienic for the current Conservative party. He mentioned on the Today programme (Tuesday, 8.10am) the probable effect of quotas and "A" lists on the type of candidate selected, but the interviewer didn't pick up on the issue. Tony Benn suggested we look at Candidates' incomes as much as MPs' but the BBC Newsnight interviewer on Tuesday night wasn't interested either. I posted about the detrimental effect of quotas on the democratic process last year after listening to Tony Benn on the Today programme.
The issue is fundamental to the integrity of parliamentary democracy and the media don't care. They like the expenses scandal though, because it comes in an easy-to-understand form of pigs in the trough and people in power on the make.
Peter Hitchens mentions the selection issue briefly in his blog of 2 days ago. He rightly condemns the sackings of Howard Flight and Patrick Mercer as disgraceful when they stated the wrong views, something which played well with the liberal media, but which further undermines the independence of MP's. You can't have a proper democracy if the representatives of a constituency avoid discussing controversial issues rather than publicly disagree with their leader, or more correctly the groupthink imposed by the liberal-left establishment.
Mary Kenny was writing in the Telegraph some days ago, telling how the candidates for the labour list of the 1990's Labour party had to sign a document, stating that they supported abortion. You can see how this kind of ideological cleansing would exclude traditionalist Catholics for example. The impact of this provision on the voting in the House of Commons could be seen 11 or 12 years later when Labour MP's overwhelmingly voted to keep the shockingly lax Abortion laws, in spite of public opinion, favouring stricter laws. As it was then, so will it be. We can expect that candidates chosen by the Tories now will determine the character of the political scene for the next decade.
As an aside, you should be aware that the Liberal Democrats have the right to abortion as part of their policy. That is why the now Cross-bench peer, David Lord Alton left in the 1980's.
For the coming 2010 election and no doubt the 2009 Euro-election too, the “A” list (or equivalent) of Conservative MP's will be largely imposed by Conservative Central Office in preference to local candidates, with detriment to the democratic process after the next election.
“A” list Tory candidates will be chosen because the leadership finds them congenial; and of course they will be loyal to the Central Party machine that ensured their appointment, partly for career reasons but also because they would not have been appointed if they had the wrong views. They won't have much connection to the constituency or to the voters who elect the MP based on party colours. Those local candidates who are selected, will still have been vetted for ideological correctness. Anyone not modern or progessive enough on the key issues will be seen as a potential liability - and awkward to boot.
Cameron wants to "detoxify" the Tory brand by burning incense with the equality and diversity priesthood. A key part of this strategy is about avoiding being seen as exclusively white, male, Christian, heterosexual. Consequently the new parliamentary cohort will be diverse in sex, sexuality, religion, ethnicity; however, because this more representative social mix will have been largely imposed, cutting out the democratic process in the constituencies, they will have little real connection with the area they represent. They will be approved by a few people close to the leader, and so one can expect them to be homogeneous in their opinions and hygienic in their attitudes – especially on all the politically correct issues that the media likes to judge political figures by. Within a certain tolerance threshold of course; they won't agree exactly on every issue; but they will have a similar world view, much more so than in political parties of the past. They will be a batch of mass-produced talking heads, parroting the views of the Tory front bench. It doesn't matter what race, religion, sex or sexuality a placeman (or placewoman) is; they will represent the views of the leader rather than the people they are supposed to exemplify. The Labour women in Parliament were not very representative of stay-at-home mothers - by definition; and we saw it in the legislative agenda. The "Diversity" agenda will help to legitimise the lack of accountability to the electorate, even if it only applies to a proportion of "A" list candidates.
Rather than the Tories being detoxified, they will be ideologically cleansed. The toxicity will remain because the electorate will quickly realise that their MPs don't speak for them at all. No doubt there will be a few brave dissenters, who increase in numbers over the years; but most will be largely compliant, loyal to only the voters that count, David Cameron and his close associates. I hope it won't be as pronounced as that; but that is the way political patronage works. Professional journalists from the MSM should take time to investigate the matter, and give the electorate a chance to see what kind of candidates they will be voting for.
Lord Tebbit thought himself regarded by the leadership as too unhygienic for the current Conservative party. He mentioned on the Today programme (Tuesday, 8.10am) the probable effect of quotas and "A" lists on the type of candidate selected, but the interviewer didn't pick up on the issue. Tony Benn suggested we look at Candidates' incomes as much as MPs' but the BBC Newsnight interviewer on Tuesday night wasn't interested either. I posted about the detrimental effect of quotas on the democratic process last year after listening to Tony Benn on the Today programme.
The issue is fundamental to the integrity of parliamentary democracy and the media don't care. They like the expenses scandal though, because it comes in an easy-to-understand form of pigs in the trough and people in power on the make.
Peter Hitchens mentions the selection issue briefly in his blog of 2 days ago. He rightly condemns the sackings of Howard Flight and Patrick Mercer as disgraceful when they stated the wrong views, something which played well with the liberal media, but which further undermines the independence of MP's. You can't have a proper democracy if the representatives of a constituency avoid discussing controversial issues rather than publicly disagree with their leader, or more correctly the groupthink imposed by the liberal-left establishment.
Mary Kenny was writing in the Telegraph some days ago, telling how the candidates for the labour list of the 1990's Labour party had to sign a document, stating that they supported abortion. You can see how this kind of ideological cleansing would exclude traditionalist Catholics for example. The impact of this provision on the voting in the House of Commons could be seen 11 or 12 years later when Labour MP's overwhelmingly voted to keep the shockingly lax Abortion laws, in spite of public opinion, favouring stricter laws. As it was then, so will it be. We can expect that candidates chosen by the Tories now will determine the character of the political scene for the next decade.
As an aside, you should be aware that the Liberal Democrats have the right to abortion as part of their policy. That is why the now Cross-bench peer, David Lord Alton left in the 1980's.
MPs' expenses 2: honourable members hanging from lamp posts
Second homes, moats, swimming pools, the Telegraph's day-by-day revelations have become a seismic political event. However, the issue of how Parliament fails to represent the vital interests of the British people is more important than expenses. Also people should be looking at how new parliamentary candidates get foisted on constituencies by central party machines.
Personal morality or systemic failure? It is easier than people recognise to fall in to the trap of abusing expense accounts. But they are meant to be honourable members; and people are thinking, if they can't get their own house in order, how can they represent the country? When individual MPs are profiting from second homes, people are aggrieved because housing has been one of the major scandals of the past decade, and it is still with us. Easy credit, immigration and changing employment structures (rise of finance, decline of manufacturing) led to inflated prices and also priced people out of the market. MP's have done nothing about it.
For once Question Time was interesting. It was obviously going to be difficult for whichever unfortunate MPs had to face the crowds, but the audience were jeering, hooting, completely furious. They had lost all respect for the political system, if they had any before. People were prepared to clap when one of the panel talked about the good work MP's did, but for the most part “it was like a lynch mob”, as Andrew Neil said. There were people heckling even Menzies Campbell - “ you've been found out” - as well as Government Housing Minister, Margaret Beckett. They stood up for themselves quite well.
In terms of creating maximum effect, the Telegraph played a blinder, I'll give them that. Each day with clockwork regularity, the artillery guns moved serenely on to another nest of miscreants. And we knew that the next day, there would be more. Each new scandal-clad dawn condemned another bunch, looking like prisoners in the Palace of Westminster rather then honourable members of the Mother of Parliaments, to be taken out and shot, metaphorically speaking – or at least to sit in the stocks and get pelted with muck in the laughing, scowling court of public contempt.
But people are furious because it shows what the elites can get away with. But how does fury help make the situation better?. You still need MP's in a democracy, as Hannan states. You could sack all the MP's and replace them with a new bunch, appointed by their central party machines, so they will be inexperienced and even more like ciphers than the ones that went before them. The new cohort will be diverse in sex, sexuality, religion, accent and ethnicity, but homogenous and hygenic in their opinions, selected because they have the same views as the party leadership. After Question Time, Neil and Co mocked the idea that it was the system; which is fair enough, given some of the abuses. But if you just concentrate on the MP's and make them sacrificial lambs, then you might forget to consider 1) how they are selected, 2) the power of patronage and 3) the PC Consensus, which together lead to them voting with the party machines (nearly) everytime. From selling Rover to the Chinese to immigration to the EU to deaths in Afghanistan, the list goes on.
Tony Benn said on Newsnight (Tuesday, I think) that of course this is “muckraking”, which isn't the same as saying that Expenses abuses don't matter, just an old-fashioned view that digging the dirt just for the sake of it is disreputable. Benn's integrity as a grand old man of politics is unassailable. The interviewer ignored him because it went against the political corruption story they want to hype up while ignoring the inconvenient fact that the parties consistently fail to represent their electorate on the issues. On Channel 4 news (Thursday), Khrishna Guru-Murthy seemed to want a whole new political order. Matthew Taylor was arguing for restraint.
Rather than hang them up on lamp-posts, the British people should remember there is a general election coming and examine how their MP's get selected in the first place. Will they be selected on merit or because they have the right views?
The solution is to vote them out - and maybe people are so angry, they'll break the 3-party system. That could be the impact of having the revelations before the election, not after. They'll say a large protest vote in June is due to the extraordinary circumstances of the MPs' expenses scandal, rather than admit it is a judgement on the political failures over the last 10 or 20 years - but so what?
A possible and regrettable dead end for all this fury is that - and on one level this is unfair because, tactically, he had to do something after moatgate - we get a "dynamic leader", like Cameron, playing to the media, in the process centralising party power, and denigrating MP's further, because they are seen as too venal to be trusted.
Personal morality or systemic failure? It is easier than people recognise to fall in to the trap of abusing expense accounts. But they are meant to be honourable members; and people are thinking, if they can't get their own house in order, how can they represent the country? When individual MPs are profiting from second homes, people are aggrieved because housing has been one of the major scandals of the past decade, and it is still with us. Easy credit, immigration and changing employment structures (rise of finance, decline of manufacturing) led to inflated prices and also priced people out of the market. MP's have done nothing about it.
For once Question Time was interesting. It was obviously going to be difficult for whichever unfortunate MPs had to face the crowds, but the audience were jeering, hooting, completely furious. They had lost all respect for the political system, if they had any before. People were prepared to clap when one of the panel talked about the good work MP's did, but for the most part “it was like a lynch mob”, as Andrew Neil said. There were people heckling even Menzies Campbell - “ you've been found out” - as well as Government Housing Minister, Margaret Beckett. They stood up for themselves quite well.
In terms of creating maximum effect, the Telegraph played a blinder, I'll give them that. Each day with clockwork regularity, the artillery guns moved serenely on to another nest of miscreants. And we knew that the next day, there would be more. Each new scandal-clad dawn condemned another bunch, looking like prisoners in the Palace of Westminster rather then honourable members of the Mother of Parliaments, to be taken out and shot, metaphorically speaking – or at least to sit in the stocks and get pelted with muck in the laughing, scowling court of public contempt.
But people are furious because it shows what the elites can get away with. But how does fury help make the situation better?. You still need MP's in a democracy, as Hannan states. You could sack all the MP's and replace them with a new bunch, appointed by their central party machines, so they will be inexperienced and even more like ciphers than the ones that went before them. The new cohort will be diverse in sex, sexuality, religion, accent and ethnicity, but homogenous and hygenic in their opinions, selected because they have the same views as the party leadership. After Question Time, Neil and Co mocked the idea that it was the system; which is fair enough, given some of the abuses. But if you just concentrate on the MP's and make them sacrificial lambs, then you might forget to consider 1) how they are selected, 2) the power of patronage and 3) the PC Consensus, which together lead to them voting with the party machines (nearly) everytime. From selling Rover to the Chinese to immigration to the EU to deaths in Afghanistan, the list goes on.
Tony Benn said on Newsnight (Tuesday, I think) that of course this is “muckraking”, which isn't the same as saying that Expenses abuses don't matter, just an old-fashioned view that digging the dirt just for the sake of it is disreputable. Benn's integrity as a grand old man of politics is unassailable. The interviewer ignored him because it went against the political corruption story they want to hype up while ignoring the inconvenient fact that the parties consistently fail to represent their electorate on the issues. On Channel 4 news (Thursday), Khrishna Guru-Murthy seemed to want a whole new political order. Matthew Taylor was arguing for restraint.
Rather than hang them up on lamp-posts, the British people should remember there is a general election coming and examine how their MP's get selected in the first place. Will they be selected on merit or because they have the right views?
The solution is to vote them out - and maybe people are so angry, they'll break the 3-party system. That could be the impact of having the revelations before the election, not after. They'll say a large protest vote in June is due to the extraordinary circumstances of the MPs' expenses scandal, rather than admit it is a judgement on the political failures over the last 10 or 20 years - but so what?
A possible and regrettable dead end for all this fury is that - and on one level this is unfair because, tactically, he had to do something after moatgate - we get a "dynamic leader", like Cameron, playing to the media, in the process centralising party power, and denigrating MP's further, because they are seen as too venal to be trusted.
Pakistan nuclear threat exaggerated
Reading about the Pakistan war, you are likely to be pretty scared: Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state is about to be taken over or become a failed state; the Taliban 60 miles from Islamabad. Potentially Apocalyptic. Even if you're sceptical, there is no way of arguing against it without access to another perspective, not provided by the MSM.
It reached absurdly shrill levels with the “two weeks to survive” warning, reported dutifully by Fox, who seemed to have been the first media organisation to hear about it (i.e., they were given it). The Telegraph report is obviously based on the Fox story, even to the extent that both finish with the coda that US officials don't know what the objective of the Taliban is – to take over Pakistan or establish an area of operations in NW Pakistan. This shows how journalists depend on one source only for a big story, often a government.source.
The Guardian coverage incidentally is a lot better than the neo-con leaning Telegraph. They are more willing to question it.
There is an article by Anatol Lieven – Pakistan's passing grade on the National Interest website, which deflates this conventional analysis (conventional, partly because it is the analysis that the media uncritically accept), making it look like alarmism or downright scaremongering. Lieven pours cold water on the idea that the state is endangered, although it is troubled by terrorism; he suggests that ethnic conflict between Pashtuns and other Pakistani groups is the main driver, not the War on Terror; he points out that the 60 miles between Swat and Islamabad happens to be occupied by a high mountain range, which absurdly doesn't get mentioned in the papers, at least not the right-wing papers.
Now getting involved in Pakistan is a big step; Pakistan is a serious geo-political player; it means potentially violating another country's sovereignty, a country much more populous than Afghanistan or Iraq, with the danger of escalating the war we are already fighting. In spite of this, there is no proper media debate or analysis. What seems clear is that the existence of Taliban havens in North-West Pakistan make the war in Afghanistan more difficult, possibly unwinnable. But getting involved in Pakistan has its own consequences: we make the leaders look like Western stooges, we could make the Taliban look like heroes. We may help destabilse Pakistan, by de-legitimising the Government, even the Army. We could make the people hate us as a result of civilian casualties. The exaggeration of the perilousness of the situation in Pakistan pre-empts any such debate, the western population goes along with it.
The wider moral I draw is this: we see this situation through the prism of the the free world vs War on Terror, world policing vs rogue states. Because the model we apply does not fit the reality, the situation is not as malleable as we expect. Lieven is saying that other, local factors will influence, even dominate why the local actors act as they do. We saw how the utopian scheme of democratising Iraq while destroying Terror and Tyranny initially floundered on ethnic and religious divides (not on a lack of UN resolutions), and contributed to a large-scale insurgency. They still dominate Iraqi politics in a democracy established only by a protracted and bloody war, the economic cost of which has contributed to US (and UK) dependence on Chinese credit. We deplete our resources for marginal gains, if they are gains at all.
Looked at from the local perspective, the Pakistanis will not want to defeat the Taliban because they see Afghanistan as their back yard, and fear encirclement by Hindu India. Their tardiness in fighting the global War on Terror, demanded by the West, has a rational basis.
It reached absurdly shrill levels with the “two weeks to survive” warning, reported dutifully by Fox, who seemed to have been the first media organisation to hear about it (i.e., they were given it). The Telegraph report is obviously based on the Fox story, even to the extent that both finish with the coda that US officials don't know what the objective of the Taliban is – to take over Pakistan or establish an area of operations in NW Pakistan. This shows how journalists depend on one source only for a big story, often a government.source.
The Guardian coverage incidentally is a lot better than the neo-con leaning Telegraph. They are more willing to question it.
There is an article by Anatol Lieven – Pakistan's passing grade on the National Interest website, which deflates this conventional analysis (conventional, partly because it is the analysis that the media uncritically accept), making it look like alarmism or downright scaremongering. Lieven pours cold water on the idea that the state is endangered, although it is troubled by terrorism; he suggests that ethnic conflict between Pashtuns and other Pakistani groups is the main driver, not the War on Terror; he points out that the 60 miles between Swat and Islamabad happens to be occupied by a high mountain range, which absurdly doesn't get mentioned in the papers, at least not the right-wing papers.
Now getting involved in Pakistan is a big step; Pakistan is a serious geo-political player; it means potentially violating another country's sovereignty, a country much more populous than Afghanistan or Iraq, with the danger of escalating the war we are already fighting. In spite of this, there is no proper media debate or analysis. What seems clear is that the existence of Taliban havens in North-West Pakistan make the war in Afghanistan more difficult, possibly unwinnable. But getting involved in Pakistan has its own consequences: we make the leaders look like Western stooges, we could make the Taliban look like heroes. We may help destabilse Pakistan, by de-legitimising the Government, even the Army. We could make the people hate us as a result of civilian casualties. The exaggeration of the perilousness of the situation in Pakistan pre-empts any such debate, the western population goes along with it.
The wider moral I draw is this: we see this situation through the prism of the the free world vs War on Terror, world policing vs rogue states. Because the model we apply does not fit the reality, the situation is not as malleable as we expect. Lieven is saying that other, local factors will influence, even dominate why the local actors act as they do. We saw how the utopian scheme of democratising Iraq while destroying Terror and Tyranny initially floundered on ethnic and religious divides (not on a lack of UN resolutions), and contributed to a large-scale insurgency. They still dominate Iraqi politics in a democracy established only by a protracted and bloody war, the economic cost of which has contributed to US (and UK) dependence on Chinese credit. We deplete our resources for marginal gains, if they are gains at all.
Looked at from the local perspective, the Pakistanis will not want to defeat the Taliban because they see Afghanistan as their back yard, and fear encirclement by Hindu India. Their tardiness in fighting the global War on Terror, demanded by the West, has a rational basis.
Saturday 9 May 2009
Luvvies and the downfall of the Spectator
Imagine my suprise to be reading the Spectator and find eight pages devoted to aimless witterings on America by Stephen Fry. Eight pages! you'd happily skip it if it were two pages, forgive three - maybe, but eight pages for one article in a publication supposed to be about politics. What was Cameronian D'Ancona thinking about?
Wasn't the Spectator once a hard-hitting, independent-minded right-wing alternative to the stifling homogeneity of opinion you get on the BBC? No longer, if our modernising editor has anything to do with it. D'Ancona did a 2-part BBC series, presenting a rather BBC-like picture of immigration recently. Come to think of it, I believe Fry was in a BBC documentary on the US; so this is part of an innovative and dynamic strategic partnership between the BBC and the Spectator, soon to be as liberal as each other.
I note the article was a transcript of a lecture given at the Royal Geographical Society. Is this a synergy here with the Spectator? Perhaps the board of that no doubt state-funded institution are sucking up to the new patrons, who are likely to win the election next year and think working with Cameron's media friend will help - new synergies, new partnerships; or it could just be Fry is the only connection - he is famous enough to syndicate; maybe the Conservatives' plan is to emulate the Labour Luvvie campaign of '97 and have their own band of Luvvies to bring in the Islington vote. Fry is being lined up as their leader of the luvvie campaign. Who knows?
neo-conservative dreams at conservative home?
There is a piece by Andrew Mitchell at Conservative home about how we must intervene in Somalia - in order to stop the scourge of pirates on the high-seas. The keywords are "intervention", "free world", "renegade", "state failure", "state building", "export terrorism", "humanitarian crisis". So it looks like they have another war or foreign adventure in the pipeline.
Like so much from the Conservative party these days, the article seems to be coded, packed with euphemism, so that the position of the writer/speaker is difficult to pinpoint, the intention being presumably to mean different things to different people, and to provide as narrow a target as possible to opponents in relation to the amount of information given about the writer's real views.
As for "over-fishing and toxic dumping have contributed to the economic collapse" being the reason for the pirates's activities, this may be true to an extent; but some of us with use of a memory, when looking for why there is a breakdown in political order (and there won't be much economic activity in a war zone), might just blame the Bush administration's help to Ethiopia in overthrowing the what look like now relatively moderate Islamic courts; all in the name of the War on Terror of course, fightingrogue states renegades.
The key paragraph is:
"The piracy we are seeing is a direct consequence of prolonged state failure and instability in Somalia, which has the potential to destabilise the whole region and export terrorism and disease to our own shores – as well as deepening the already appalling humanitarian crisis."
It looks like the usual tactic: lots of bad things will happen unless we get involved, and getting involved is the best, if not only, way to stop bad things happening; and if that sounds too self-interested let's also talk "humanitarianism" so as to create a moral duty to intervene. Interesting that one of the comments mentioned "bleeding-heart liberal" - this person no doubt heard a liberal interventionist talking; I heard a neo-conservative using liberal rhetoric as an afterthought. This is the dog-whistle rhetoric people talk about, except with people reactign negatively.
I suppose you could say the damage is done: Somalia is in a state of near-anarchy - so what better place for western intervention? The only thing is, I don't know of a western intervention that has created a stable political or social structure since the War on Terror began. The comments are pretty skeptical too.
There are more jaundiced views about intervention from the US-based anti-war.com site, where the pro-interventionists are recorded as speaking somewhat more directly. Military intervention is being mooted seriously. US foreign policy website, The National Interest advises caution, partly for economic reasons. Cameron's new-found fiscal conservatism, if nothing else, might also favour non-intervention, I would like to think.
Ron Paul suggests allowing merchant vessels to arm themselves. Sensible, proportionate, and the taxpayer doesn't pay (for once). But Andrew Mitchell won't get his heroic intervention.
If it's on Conservative home, does that mean it is favoured by the Conservative top brass? Cameron is a neo-conservative, we hear; Michael Gove is a self-confessed neo-con; the fact that the Cheney-McCain-following Liam Fox is Defence Secretary probably signals that Cameron is as interventionist as Blair and Bush. Mitchell is shadow international development secretary, so he must be speaking with authority.
Like so much from the Conservative party these days, the article seems to be coded, packed with euphemism, so that the position of the writer/speaker is difficult to pinpoint, the intention being presumably to mean different things to different people, and to provide as narrow a target as possible to opponents in relation to the amount of information given about the writer's real views.
As for "over-fishing and toxic dumping have contributed to the economic collapse" being the reason for the pirates's activities, this may be true to an extent; but some of us with use of a memory, when looking for why there is a breakdown in political order (and there won't be much economic activity in a war zone), might just blame the Bush administration's help to Ethiopia in overthrowing the what look like now relatively moderate Islamic courts; all in the name of the War on Terror of course, fighting
The key paragraph is:
"The piracy we are seeing is a direct consequence of prolonged state failure and instability in Somalia, which has the potential to destabilise the whole region and export terrorism and disease to our own shores – as well as deepening the already appalling humanitarian crisis."
It looks like the usual tactic: lots of bad things will happen unless we get involved, and getting involved is the best, if not only, way to stop bad things happening; and if that sounds too self-interested let's also talk "humanitarianism" so as to create a moral duty to intervene. Interesting that one of the comments mentioned "bleeding-heart liberal" - this person no doubt heard a liberal interventionist talking; I heard a neo-conservative using liberal rhetoric as an afterthought. This is the dog-whistle rhetoric people talk about, except with people reactign negatively.
I suppose you could say the damage is done: Somalia is in a state of near-anarchy - so what better place for western intervention? The only thing is, I don't know of a western intervention that has created a stable political or social structure since the War on Terror began. The comments are pretty skeptical too.
There are more jaundiced views about intervention from the US-based anti-war.com site, where the pro-interventionists are recorded as speaking somewhat more directly. Military intervention is being mooted seriously. US foreign policy website, The National Interest advises caution, partly for economic reasons. Cameron's new-found fiscal conservatism, if nothing else, might also favour non-intervention, I would like to think.
Ron Paul suggests allowing merchant vessels to arm themselves. Sensible, proportionate, and the taxpayer doesn't pay (for once). But Andrew Mitchell won't get his heroic intervention.
If it's on Conservative home, does that mean it is favoured by the Conservative top brass? Cameron is a neo-conservative, we hear; Michael Gove is a self-confessed neo-con; the fact that the Cheney-McCain-following Liam Fox is Defence Secretary probably signals that Cameron is as interventionist as Blair and Bush. Mitchell is shadow international development secretary, so he must be speaking with authority.
MPs' expenses: do they matter?
Not "do MP's matter?", you could be forgiven for thinking they don't, but do their expenses matter?, the scandal around which is pretty boring, and not that important in the scheme of things. Yes, it's a poorly-designed system, yes (some) MP's are venal; but so is most of humanity given a bad system. I haven't fully read (yawn) the Telegraph's shocking expose.
Part and parcel of the decline of the west is the obsession with "corruption" and the minutiae of official rule-breaking; receipts matter more than failure to represent our interests; procedures matter more than an depraved and corrupting behaviour: an example of the latter is the BBC's method of defusing the Ross-Brand affair: procedures were not followed, they said, the broadcast was not compliant with editorial guidelines. We are invited to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.
The real scandal is that MPs are mainly apparatchniks and voting fodder, that our elected representatives support a political system which refuses to deal with issues that matter to those that elect them; many of these issues being dismissed as "populist" concerns: immigration, housing inflation (as it was, and they'd like it to return), crime and disorder, the EU, the continuing wipeout of manufacturing, abortion. On abortion, Labour members went along with the feminist lobby rather than the groundswell of deep "unease" amongst the population. "Unease" is euphemism for horror, but that is the abortion debate for you.
Can you imagine if politicians tried to take account of the views of their constituents and voted accordingly, at least on most issues (which leaves some space for conscience)? But if you are part of a self-serving political elite, selected by your party because you agree with the party view, your conscience is likely to be at odds as often as not with the people who elect you.
I guess political makeweights need their lucre; but the money siphoned off by politicians with their noses in the trough is small beer, compared to the billionsinvested, spent, wasted by public authorities - as recent Telegraph letter have said. Is it any wonder that blogs, the Letter's pages and Any Answers are more interesting than any forum where politicians are giving their views on the state of the country?
The second homes aspect makes me think of hard-working people who can't afford a first home, or who can't get on the council house list - how disgraceful it has been for many years that politicians are failing to look after the interests of the electorate. The fact that they are simultaneously looking after themselves merely throws the issue into sharper relief.
There will be shameful examples of personal venality, which the petty-fogging expenses-based system seems to encourage (the mindset seems to have been they were entitled). Members of the nation's sovereign body shoudn't be forced to fill in expenses forms - which is demeaning for what should be the country's most important job and a waste of their (presumably) precious time. Better to pay them a high salary instead than this nonsense of a system; yet paying politicians more is not obviously the answer; if you think high salaries are an antidote to corruption, you only have to look at the influence of lobbyists in Washington ...
Alternatively pay them a low salary, so that people who have succeeded elsewhere in life or who have an independent income are more prevalent. There are arguments for this, mainly to reduce the propnderance of career politicians. But notwithstanding the abuses around second homes, it seems to me this approach was more difficult in an era of rapid house price inflation, one of the most important social and economic trends under the Labour Government, and encouraged by Gordon Brown. Rapid house price inflation creates a Hobbesian need to acquire real estate as a defensive measure. It is corrosive of personal integrity and a sense of public duty, because no-one can afford to be virtuous: if you don't speculate in housing, someone else will, and in five years time, you will be hopelessly priced out of the market. Nurses, policemen and firemen might leave London, but MPs can't do this. They did what the rest of the well-off population were doing, namely investing in property.
A lot of voters have been affected by housing shortages, country people priced out by second-home owners, Londoners priced out by bankers and immigrants, or people who are not dysfunctional enough or intentionally poor enough to get a council house. Politicians were noticeably quite about the effect of this on their constituents for 10 years; it is what they failed to do in terms of governing the country, which is truly scandalous.
Concentration on individual abuses achieves very little, except to let us indulge in an orgy of smug, self-righteousness vindictiveness – as if most British people working in that system wouldn't have acted the same way. (Being immersed in a system where everyone is doing it also normalises its outrageousness – someone has said that in the context of the European parliament).
I wonder if we can forgive anymore. During the Asian banking crisis, we saw how Japanese top executives resigned in disgrace, bowing and abasing themselves. A lesson for Fred Goodwin here and a lot of other CEO's and politicoes, whose apologies are rehearsed or forced. Yet I cannot help feel that in the vitriol we feel towards the equivalent disgraced individuals in our banking crisis, we (i.e., most people in the Western world) have also forgotten how to properly forgive or how to accept with grace an apology. We have this vindicative compulsion to draw blood, to extract personal vengeance from these individuals: it isn't enough for them to do the decent thing and resign: we have to ridicule and humiliate them as well, all part of the anti-authoritarian, egalitarian and (supposedly) non-conformist turn in recent Western culture. The bowing and other rituals you find in the East seem to defend everyone from the raw, personal emotion, allowing everyone to retain some personal dignity. They live in a deferential, hierarchical society of course; I suspect our infantile faith in meritocracy increases the rancour and bitterness, especially when we also seem to want equality for 'excluded groups'.
In any case, the wrongdoers these days don't resign, which continues the downward vicious spiral of elite unaccountability and public desire for revenge. Ultimately this is corrosive of something very important both to the inner spirit, the soul if you like, and social trust. There is a symbiotic relationship here: the less people want to own up to their mistakes and accept the responsibility, the more everyone else wants to eviscerate them; but it becomes a vicious circle. It is analogous to the way politicians very rarely answer an honest question: is that a cause or effect of the way politicians have been subjected to the Paxman-Humphreys style of interviewing, which assumes before a word is said that the politician is lying, stupid, corrupt and/or generally dishonest. Dishonest media-presentation techniques become the only defence, which further justifies the self-righteous approach of journalists. Part of the idealism of the post-war culture is that there is an inability to accept personal frailty or moral imperfection - from people in positions of responsibility, that is.
The decision whether to pay high or pay low is not an easy one, although increasingly I favour low pay: basically we need MP's who have already had a life of achievement (or at least independence) outside politics; it would make a great difference also ifthey were loyal to their local constituencies more than to their leadership. The lack of calibre of individual MPs - which shows itself in the behaviour of the main parties and the legislature will contribute to the divide between politicians and the electorate. MP's are subserviant for the most part to their party leadership, a situation you would expect to worsen the more candidates are foisted on constituencies by central party machines. Cue positive discrimination as a sure fire way of accentuating this.
So maybe the most important thing to do now is to look at the kind of individuals being appointed now as partliamentary candidates for the next election. This is especially true of Conservative candidates as they are likely to be the most numerous block.
Part and parcel of the decline of the west is the obsession with "corruption" and the minutiae of official rule-breaking; receipts matter more than failure to represent our interests; procedures matter more than an depraved and corrupting behaviour: an example of the latter is the BBC's method of defusing the Ross-Brand affair: procedures were not followed, they said, the broadcast was not compliant with editorial guidelines. We are invited to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.
The real scandal is that MPs are mainly apparatchniks and voting fodder, that our elected representatives support a political system which refuses to deal with issues that matter to those that elect them; many of these issues being dismissed as "populist" concerns: immigration, housing inflation (as it was, and they'd like it to return), crime and disorder, the EU, the continuing wipeout of manufacturing, abortion. On abortion, Labour members went along with the feminist lobby rather than the groundswell of deep "unease" amongst the population. "Unease" is euphemism for horror, but that is the abortion debate for you.
Can you imagine if politicians tried to take account of the views of their constituents and voted accordingly, at least on most issues (which leaves some space for conscience)? But if you are part of a self-serving political elite, selected by your party because you agree with the party view, your conscience is likely to be at odds as often as not with the people who elect you.
I guess political makeweights need their lucre; but the money siphoned off by politicians with their noses in the trough is small beer, compared to the billions
The second homes aspect makes me think of hard-working people who can't afford a first home, or who can't get on the council house list - how disgraceful it has been for many years that politicians are failing to look after the interests of the electorate. The fact that they are simultaneously looking after themselves merely throws the issue into sharper relief.
There will be shameful examples of personal venality, which the petty-fogging expenses-based system seems to encourage (the mindset seems to have been they were entitled). Members of the nation's sovereign body shoudn't be forced to fill in expenses forms - which is demeaning for what should be the country's most important job and a waste of their (presumably) precious time. Better to pay them a high salary instead than this nonsense of a system; yet paying politicians more is not obviously the answer; if you think high salaries are an antidote to corruption, you only have to look at the influence of lobbyists in Washington ...
Alternatively pay them a low salary, so that people who have succeeded elsewhere in life or who have an independent income are more prevalent. There are arguments for this, mainly to reduce the propnderance of career politicians. But notwithstanding the abuses around second homes, it seems to me this approach was more difficult in an era of rapid house price inflation, one of the most important social and economic trends under the Labour Government, and encouraged by Gordon Brown. Rapid house price inflation creates a Hobbesian need to acquire real estate as a defensive measure. It is corrosive of personal integrity and a sense of public duty, because no-one can afford to be virtuous: if you don't speculate in housing, someone else will, and in five years time, you will be hopelessly priced out of the market. Nurses, policemen and firemen might leave London, but MPs can't do this. They did what the rest of the well-off population were doing, namely investing in property.
A lot of voters have been affected by housing shortages, country people priced out by second-home owners, Londoners priced out by bankers and immigrants, or people who are not dysfunctional enough or intentionally poor enough to get a council house. Politicians were noticeably quite about the effect of this on their constituents for 10 years; it is what they failed to do in terms of governing the country, which is truly scandalous.
Concentration on individual abuses achieves very little, except to let us indulge in an orgy of smug, self-righteousness vindictiveness – as if most British people working in that system wouldn't have acted the same way. (Being immersed in a system where everyone is doing it also normalises its outrageousness – someone has said that in the context of the European parliament).
I wonder if we can forgive anymore. During the Asian banking crisis, we saw how Japanese top executives resigned in disgrace, bowing and abasing themselves. A lesson for Fred Goodwin here and a lot of other CEO's and politicoes, whose apologies are rehearsed or forced. Yet I cannot help feel that in the vitriol we feel towards the equivalent disgraced individuals in our banking crisis, we (i.e., most people in the Western world) have also forgotten how to properly forgive or how to accept with grace an apology. We have this vindicative compulsion to draw blood, to extract personal vengeance from these individuals: it isn't enough for them to do the decent thing and resign: we have to ridicule and humiliate them as well, all part of the anti-authoritarian, egalitarian and (supposedly) non-conformist turn in recent Western culture. The bowing and other rituals you find in the East seem to defend everyone from the raw, personal emotion, allowing everyone to retain some personal dignity. They live in a deferential, hierarchical society of course; I suspect our infantile faith in meritocracy increases the rancour and bitterness, especially when we also seem to want equality for 'excluded groups'.
In any case, the wrongdoers these days don't resign, which continues the downward vicious spiral of elite unaccountability and public desire for revenge. Ultimately this is corrosive of something very important both to the inner spirit, the soul if you like, and social trust. There is a symbiotic relationship here: the less people want to own up to their mistakes and accept the responsibility, the more everyone else wants to eviscerate them; but it becomes a vicious circle. It is analogous to the way politicians very rarely answer an honest question: is that a cause or effect of the way politicians have been subjected to the Paxman-Humphreys style of interviewing, which assumes before a word is said that the politician is lying, stupid, corrupt and/or generally dishonest. Dishonest media-presentation techniques become the only defence, which further justifies the self-righteous approach of journalists. Part of the idealism of the post-war culture is that there is an inability to accept personal frailty or moral imperfection - from people in positions of responsibility, that is.
The decision whether to pay high or pay low is not an easy one, although increasingly I favour low pay: basically we need MP's who have already had a life of achievement (or at least independence) outside politics; it would make a great difference also ifthey were loyal to their local constituencies more than to their leadership. The lack of calibre of individual MPs - which shows itself in the behaviour of the main parties and the legislature will contribute to the divide between politicians and the electorate. MP's are subserviant for the most part to their party leadership, a situation you would expect to worsen the more candidates are foisted on constituencies by central party machines. Cue positive discrimination as a sure fire way of accentuating this.
So maybe the most important thing to do now is to look at the kind of individuals being appointed now as partliamentary candidates for the next election. This is especially true of Conservative candidates as they are likely to be the most numerous block.
Saturday 25 April 2009
Carol Thatcher didn't apologise
Rightly or wrongly, Carol Thatcher didn't apologise; but if she did, we would have to ask what she was apologising for. The comment against her at the time that gave me the most pause for thought was from a black listener to Radio 4's Today programme, who stated that "gollywog" was a term of abuse shouted by white bullies at her across the street in the 70's, something she found very frightening. That comment has validity as it stands.
There is a clear difference, however, between shouting an abusive word at a stranger in the street and using the same word about someone you are watching on the Television screen. The first could be taken as a preliminary to violence, it will be humiliating to the person shouted at; the tennis player referred to by Thatcher would not have experienced this. He would never even have known about it, if the comment had not been reported to the authorities by the BBC employees who overheard it. Snitching with a possible view to ingratiate yourself to the authorities is pretty repulsive too.
In any case, the two speech acts have different contexts and intentions. So would Carol Thatcher be apologising for racially aggravated abuse or a slightly boorish comment?
She didn't apologise though; and I salute her courage. She stood up for herself rather than publicly recant at the behest of her politically correct inquisitors.
There is a clear difference, however, between shouting an abusive word at a stranger in the street and using the same word about someone you are watching on the Television screen. The first could be taken as a preliminary to violence, it will be humiliating to the person shouted at; the tennis player referred to by Thatcher would not have experienced this. He would never even have known about it, if the comment had not been reported to the authorities by the BBC employees who overheard it. Snitching with a possible view to ingratiate yourself to the authorities is pretty repulsive too.
In any case, the two speech acts have different contexts and intentions. So would Carol Thatcher be apologising for racially aggravated abuse or a slightly boorish comment?
She didn't apologise though; and I salute her courage. She stood up for herself rather than publicly recant at the behest of her politically correct inquisitors.
Give the police their due?
Further to my previous post on the police at the G20, is it too glib or naïve to criticise the police for their policing of G20? Let's look at it from the police's side.
We might say that environmentalists are not just peaceful protestors, but provocative agitators, using violent tactics;
Footage of police actions is edited by the environmentalists for their own ends, and gullible journalists fall for that, as does the public when it sees the footage; moreover the very act of filming changes the situation on the ground: there is something aggressive in the very act of filming, especially if they stick the camera close to the police officer's face - police accountability might even be personal vulnerability to attack outside of the job;
You might also say that the sheer nervous tension of a day-long police operation means individual police officers will sometimes lash out in “inappropriate” ways.
But in fairness to the protestors, another way of seeing the filming is to say that having been duffed up the police, the protestors are filming for their own protection; after all, the state are filming them. Defensive and offensive filming look the same. Also, police officers should be disciplined enough not to lash out: it would be understandable if someone is actually hitting the police officer, so he needs to defend himself; but there were no pitched battles going on.
Again in favour of the police, you might say that on the previous G7/8 days, these people wrecked City centres and we should be thankful that the police kept order and preserved property. This is the only objection that carries much weight with me. But there is a controversy going on about tactics and separating the anarchist thugs from the peaceful protestors.
I'll finish with the horror stories told by George Monbiot in Tuesday's guardian. You don't have to sympathise with Monbiot's politics to agree that he has a right not to be duffed up by the people he pays his taxes to protect him. He mentions that the countryside alliance got the same treatment. The use of counter-terrorism powers is also disturbing. I am linking to the article at Monbiot.com rather than the Guardian because there Monbiot provides some links to press and parliamentary comment.
The point about my previous post was to say that good policing is about protecting and respecting the liberty of all subjects of the crown, not just using the law to rectify the supposed injustices suffered by “designated oppressed groups” (see latest from Theodore Dalrymple for that phrase). I had begun to wonder if I was fitting the facts around the G20 demo to this general observation; but actually it could be you or me protesting next time, so police restraint is good.
We might say that environmentalists are not just peaceful protestors, but provocative agitators, using violent tactics;
Footage of police actions is edited by the environmentalists for their own ends, and gullible journalists fall for that, as does the public when it sees the footage; moreover the very act of filming changes the situation on the ground: there is something aggressive in the very act of filming, especially if they stick the camera close to the police officer's face - police accountability might even be personal vulnerability to attack outside of the job;
You might also say that the sheer nervous tension of a day-long police operation means individual police officers will sometimes lash out in “inappropriate” ways.
But in fairness to the protestors, another way of seeing the filming is to say that having been duffed up the police, the protestors are filming for their own protection; after all, the state are filming them. Defensive and offensive filming look the same. Also, police officers should be disciplined enough not to lash out: it would be understandable if someone is actually hitting the police officer, so he needs to defend himself; but there were no pitched battles going on.
Again in favour of the police, you might say that on the previous G7/8 days, these people wrecked City centres and we should be thankful that the police kept order and preserved property. This is the only objection that carries much weight with me. But there is a controversy going on about tactics and separating the anarchist thugs from the peaceful protestors.
I'll finish with the horror stories told by George Monbiot in Tuesday's guardian. You don't have to sympathise with Monbiot's politics to agree that he has a right not to be duffed up by the people he pays his taxes to protect him. He mentions that the countryside alliance got the same treatment. The use of counter-terrorism powers is also disturbing. I am linking to the article at Monbiot.com rather than the Guardian because there Monbiot provides some links to press and parliamentary comment.
The point about my previous post was to say that good policing is about protecting and respecting the liberty of all subjects of the crown, not just using the law to rectify the supposed injustices suffered by “designated oppressed groups” (see latest from Theodore Dalrymple for that phrase). I had begun to wonder if I was fitting the facts around the G20 demo to this general observation; but actually it could be you or me protesting next time, so police restraint is good.
Saturday 18 April 2009
Police Service brutality
Ironic that after the struggle against "institutional racism", a change of name from the "police force" to "police service", initiatives on community policing, softly-softly, the PC police chief, Ian Blair running the Met, etc, after all this we have policemen assaulting peaceful demonstrators: for me the shield in the face against one young demonstrator was the conclusive incident; but the truncheon on the back of the legs of a woman doesn't look good, nor does the death of a frail bystander after an unnecessary push by a police officer, even if we say that the policemen involved is not responsible for Mr Tomlinson's poor state of health before the push. Then the unprecedented arrest of an opposition MP, Damien Green and the searching of parliamentary offices. So liberty and good policing are not about ticking the politically correct boxes, we can now all agree.
Meanwhile the real criminals can rob and murder with impunity or ridiculously light sentences. I recommend Peter Hitchens' book, the Abolition of Liberty, which argues that security and liberty are not in opposition; that everyday public order is essential to liberty and protactive (bobbies on the beat) policing is essential to safeguard these; that the police have become agents of the state rather than the people, politically correct policing being part of this development.
Meanwhile the real criminals can rob and murder with impunity or ridiculously light sentences. I recommend Peter Hitchens' book, the Abolition of Liberty, which argues that security and liberty are not in opposition; that everyday public order is essential to liberty and protactive (bobbies on the beat) policing is essential to safeguard these; that the police have become agents of the state rather than the people, politically correct policing being part of this development.
Tuesday 14 April 2009
Greens and morality
As mentioned on EU Referendum today, the Daily Mail describes Caroline Lucas saying air travellers are killing people just as surely as someone stabbing a person in the street. Ridiculous of course unless you believe in global warming, and extreme even if you do - but "extreme" only in the language used.
Because what Lucas says is perfectly logical within the theory of global warming and other internationalist, one-world movements; it is how the left destroy morality: cultivate an exaggerated sense of global responsibility and blunt the appetite for fighting injustice close to home.
Why care about 200,000 aborted foetuses in this country when there are starving children in Africa? why care that working people in the UK can't afford to set up a family when there is much worse poverty in the third world? Instead we should have a global perspective. Better to campaign against human rights violations abroad while allowing the state in Britain to abnegate its responsibility to protect its own people. These grandiose moral agendas allow people to pontificate on what they cannot change or can't properly understand from a distance, while allowing people to be as callous as they like about social justice in their own country.
The Green party are really part of the life-hating cultural revolution, an offshoot of the extreme left. People who vote for the Greens do so as a protest vote against cynical politics, or to help the environment: but also (instead) they get state control, pro-EU dogma and dedicated liberal-left trendiness; plus fake environmentalism like Global warming.
See their website to find a smattering of policies an enviromentalist might half-agree with, plus a lot of cultural Marxism - i.e., liberal and progressive social policies. Give me Robin Page any day.
Because what Lucas says is perfectly logical within the theory of global warming and other internationalist, one-world movements; it is how the left destroy morality: cultivate an exaggerated sense of global responsibility and blunt the appetite for fighting injustice close to home.
Why care about 200,000 aborted foetuses in this country when there are starving children in Africa? why care that working people in the UK can't afford to set up a family when there is much worse poverty in the third world? Instead we should have a global perspective. Better to campaign against human rights violations abroad while allowing the state in Britain to abnegate its responsibility to protect its own people. These grandiose moral agendas allow people to pontificate on what they cannot change or can't properly understand from a distance, while allowing people to be as callous as they like about social justice in their own country.
The Green party are really part of the life-hating cultural revolution, an offshoot of the extreme left. People who vote for the Greens do so as a protest vote against cynical politics, or to help the environment: but also (instead) they get state control, pro-EU dogma and dedicated liberal-left trendiness; plus fake environmentalism like Global warming.
See their website to find a smattering of policies an enviromentalist might half-agree with, plus a lot of cultural Marxism - i.e., liberal and progressive social policies. Give me Robin Page any day.
Wednesday 1 April 2009
Obama and his honorary degree from Notre Dame
Let me add to the criticism by Pat Buchanan of Notre Dame university's decision to give Obama an honorary degree. This hollowing out of Christian faith is not new, and is highlighted in the English context by "Secularisation", Edward Norman's critique of humanist ideas within Anglicanism.
But we need to ask what is the crack that has allowed this evil in. The answer is the way in which the evils of progressive ideology masquerade as good. The Catholic Church's commitment to social justice is interpreted by many as commitment to progressive ideas and politicians, who in the process of (supposedly) helping the poor, promote their own gospel of Rosseau, Voltaire, Marx and Marcuse. And no-one reads the St. John's gospel anymore, they prefer the Jesus-as-very-good-man picture, as selectively gleaned by liberal theologians from the synoptics.
Catholics in the US and UK have traditionally voted for the left due to their economic profile; but the left have betrayed the poor. There is nothing about Obama that makes him particularly just: he supports open immigration, eroding the wages of poorer Americans; he gives tax-payer billions to the bankers, just like the Bush administration, and has filled his economic team with Clinton administration stalwarts; he foists abortion on Africans; he intends to override the constitutional rights of the states to enforce liberal abortion laws on conservative communities, much like the government here wants to do in Northern Ireland. In fact George W. Bush would be more deserving of an honorary degree because of additional expenditure he approved for humanitarian causes in Africa. But that wouldn't fit the script that some Social action Catholics seem to like better than the Bible. They hear the anti-Capitalism and ignore the anti-Catholicism.
Anyone who reads the Catholic papers will know there is a rather naive, anti-capitalist bias. There are many examples, but I shall cite Paul Donovan, who writes weekly for the Universe. In an article straplined "Church's roles is more than administering sacraments" he says that the "Church has withdrawn into itself", partly due to "society's hostility to Catholics", which is fair enough taken at face value, but one senses that the underlying picture he sees is one where "catholics are an excluded minority", rather than seeing anti-catholicism as an ideological hostility, part of the battle of ideas. Authentic Catholicism for him is adherence to the social programmes of the left.
His solution, therefore, is entirely in the realm of social action, which seems to be indistinguishable from what the state or a secular leftist organisation would do. He calls for housing justice, regularisation of undocumented workers, credit unions, churches as bases for the post office. In short, "Churches need to be looking to the needs of their parishioners byond simply delivering the sacraments every week." Donovan doesn't say the sacraments are a waste of time, but by implication he downgrades them.
Even a great theologian like Rowan Williams robustly criticises the failures of the economic system, while being more cautious about the evils of abortion.
Cross-posted on Christianity in the West.
But we need to ask what is the crack that has allowed this evil in. The answer is the way in which the evils of progressive ideology masquerade as good. The Catholic Church's commitment to social justice is interpreted by many as commitment to progressive ideas and politicians, who in the process of (supposedly) helping the poor, promote their own gospel of Rosseau, Voltaire, Marx and Marcuse. And no-one reads the St. John's gospel anymore, they prefer the Jesus-as-very-good-man picture, as selectively gleaned by liberal theologians from the synoptics.
Catholics in the US and UK have traditionally voted for the left due to their economic profile; but the left have betrayed the poor. There is nothing about Obama that makes him particularly just: he supports open immigration, eroding the wages of poorer Americans; he gives tax-payer billions to the bankers, just like the Bush administration, and has filled his economic team with Clinton administration stalwarts; he foists abortion on Africans; he intends to override the constitutional rights of the states to enforce liberal abortion laws on conservative communities, much like the government here wants to do in Northern Ireland. In fact George W. Bush would be more deserving of an honorary degree because of additional expenditure he approved for humanitarian causes in Africa. But that wouldn't fit the script that some Social action Catholics seem to like better than the Bible. They hear the anti-Capitalism and ignore the anti-Catholicism.
Anyone who reads the Catholic papers will know there is a rather naive, anti-capitalist bias. There are many examples, but I shall cite Paul Donovan, who writes weekly for the Universe. In an article straplined "Church's roles is more than administering sacraments" he says that the "Church has withdrawn into itself", partly due to "society's hostility to Catholics", which is fair enough taken at face value, but one senses that the underlying picture he sees is one where "catholics are an excluded minority", rather than seeing anti-catholicism as an ideological hostility, part of the battle of ideas. Authentic Catholicism for him is adherence to the social programmes of the left.
His solution, therefore, is entirely in the realm of social action, which seems to be indistinguishable from what the state or a secular leftist organisation would do. He calls for housing justice, regularisation of undocumented workers, credit unions, churches as bases for the post office. In short, "Churches need to be looking to the needs of their parishioners byond simply delivering the sacraments every week." Donovan doesn't say the sacraments are a waste of time, but by implication he downgrades them.
Even a great theologian like Rowan Williams robustly criticises the failures of the economic system, while being more cautious about the evils of abortion.
Cross-posted on Christianity in the West.
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