A group of Conservative MPs have launched an astonishing attack on liberal values. Their new publication is skeptical of free trade, making them less free market than the current Labour leadership. The front-man of this Tory Taliban grouping, Edward Leigh MP, has previously courted controversy by saying that he wears his anti-gay stance “as a badge of honour”.
Tory MP Alan Duncan recently wrote that:
“Our achilles heel, though, has been our social attitude. Censorious judgmentalism from the moralising wing, which treats half our own countrymen as enemies, must be rooted out. We should take JS Mill as our lodestar, and allow people to live as they choose until they actually harm someone. If the Tory Taliban can’t get that, they’ll condemn us all to oblivion.”
Yet a tidlewave of social conservatism is currently bombarding Conservative MPs. The main proponents are the Centre for Social Fascism Justice and Conservative Home, a website run by an associate of the Centre, Tim Montgomerie. The risk for the Tories is that if they go fascist authoritarian, the more moderate Tories will defect to Liberal Democrats, where some quite prominent members of the party are openly talking about moving to a more economically liberal position.
Indeed, the Liberals advocated the abolition of the “corporatist” Department of Trade and Industry in the run up to the last general election. The party’s Trade and Industry spokesman Malcolm Bruce said: “Abolishing the DTI and transferring its useful functions to other departments will be the biggest single act of deregulation in history.” The Tories opposed the move.
The Lib Dems, if they want to kick the Tories into third place, should be praying that the Tory Taliban is successful.
Wow, one hundred and thirty years of Tory evolution overturned. Talk about going back to first principles.
I read some interesting stuff on the “David Davis for Leader” blog about the Tory Taliban, and the suspicion that these unnamed MPs are the original gang who put IDS in. Who apparently don’t like Davis much, which is why it shows up on that blog.
http://daviddavisleader.blogspot.com/2005/07/tracking-down-tory-taliban.html
The real Tory rightwing has never been any sort of liberal, economic or otherwise. Tax cuts is the only place we have common ground (some libertarians also agree with their parochial opposition to international institutions, but for different reasons – the rightwingers just want to enclose us in a protectionist shell).
Of course the mainstream media, which considers Thatcherites extreme rightwingers, can’t cope with these distinctions.
Yes, you are probably right, but I do wonder how much the Conservatives are killing themselves by concentrating on what divides them rather than what unites.
The gay thing is probably an irrelevance except perhaps peripherally as a presentational issue – “Look how we’ve changed”. The whole Clause 28 farrago could only happen because we have public services delivered by a state monopoly. In a world of education vouchers and competing providers of education services (which all strands of Conservative opinion appear to agree on) the whole question goes away. If you didn’t want your children educated at a school which promoted “alternative lifestyles” then you would be able to send them to one which taught more traditional values. More likely they would be sent to one which didn’t teach anything at all about lifestyles as this would represent a considerable commercial risk except at an overtly religious school.
So if Mr Leigh could get over his dislike for gay people he might be able to see that that the values he shares with all of his fellow conservatives could deliver what he and presumably some of his constituents want without the need to insult anyone. Indeed gays might actually vote for him.
Is this really an anti-free market, free trade group? I haven’t read the 65 pager but reading the link didnt suggest anything particularly outrageous.
Apart from his anti-gay nonsense, “faith, family and flag” doesn’t seem so awful.
These guys just want to live when? The mid 1950s when you could leave your back door open and vicars cycled around village greens?
Thatcherism was viewed as a progressive thing by many – being able to own their council house, the destruction of trade union power.
No-one ever got anywhere in politics by promising a return to some mythical golden age.
Alan Duncan has it so right, and yet it seems no-one else in the Conservative party can see it.
In the link we are first told:
“The group of MPs and Edward Leigh, in particular, worry that the Conservative Party has become too libertarian.”
and then we are told:
”In an appeal for clear blue water between the two main parties, [Edward Leigh] argues for radical tax and spending cuts, a voucher system for schools, tax relief for private health insurance, a more patriotic approach to Europe and the supremacy of Parliament, a compassionate approach to the poor, and the courage to talk about moral values and the importance of marriage to the upbringing of children.”
So what’s not libertarian about this?
Alex says that they are free market sceptics and pro-religion/anti-gay. Not so good in my opinion.
All in all, it sounds like they’ve simply modelled themselves on Bush Republicans. No great ideological revolution here then.
“faith, family and flag” seems pretty awful to me. Two things the government has no business putting its nose into and one specifically designed to fool people into willingly sacrificing themselves for the ends of the state? No chance I’m voting for that.
Of course if the Lib/Dems do go in the direction Alex is suggesting maybe we can all go back to calling ourselves Whigs and reclaim the word “liberal” from the socialists!
Maybe you should actually read the pamphlet. Leigh is proposing radical tax cuts to reduce the size of the state, with an analogous process to massively reduce the role of the state in health and education to that used for council-house ownership in the 80′s – particularly increasing the role of the private sector using a voucher scheme. Indeed, this quote is particularly apt for you lot:
‘It should be noted that this paper does not support legislation to enforce the principles put forward here. People should never be forced to behave according to a particular set of ideas.’
It might not be utopian Libertarianism, but what are the alternatives? Sitting on the sidelines and complaining that the referee for this game isn’t playing by your rules?
OT, but perhaps tangently related (also a follow-up):
Angry Americans Want to Take Souter’s Land (Link)
Rob – 90% of comments over the past few days on this blog have urged the govenment to reassert our traditional British values and customs.
As a counterweight to radical Islam, this seems a pretty sensible strategy to me.
If by that you mean values of tolerance, freedom of thought & belief, etc. then I might well agree although I fail to see how that relates to “faith, family & flag” paternalistic toryism. Surely the two are at least to some degree at odds.
90% urging the Government to do something? With our reputation?
You counted? And what criteria did you use for deciding any particular comment bore that meaning?
John, not only off-topic but we have written about that splendid story here on Samizdata.net before
I just flicked through Leigh’s pamphlet – it seems pretty coherently orthodox Conservativism. It doesn’t mention gays anywhere.
The Tory Taliban are a minority in their own party. The LibDem leties are the majority in their party.
Many of the policies that this group are putting forward (reduced taxes, smaller state, voucher schemes) are radical in terms of current British political thought and, of course, eminently sensible. But, they are never going to get anywhere, at least not with this voter, as long as they package it along with harking back to some mystic “traditional” values and appealing to the baser prejudices of some voters.
The Conservatives currently attract virtually no support from amongst younger, professional, economicaly self-sufficient people in major cities who reject the overbearing Blair/Brown nanny state but couldn’t care less about traditions and “dog whistle” appeals to prejudice. Without this group the Tory party will truly die out.
The Tory party changed the country in the 80s and 90s with an economically liberal agenda. It’s time for them to come up with some socially liberal policies to excite a new generation of supporters – gay marraige, ending the “War on Drugs”, privatizing the NHS, stopping ID cards, preserving jury trials, opting out of restrictive EU diktats, encouraging the right sort of melting pot immigration…….
Guy – a large number of comments in recent days, as you will know, have stressed the need to promote and assert our traditional, British culture. This is one based on liberty, democracy, patriotism and the family.
The government can assist this process either directly (for instance by insisting children study English history at school) or indirectly (by providing tax breaks for married couples).
Robert – as a “young, professional, economicaly self-sufficient person in a major city” myself, i completely agree with you.
My point is that these people, who are repelled by anti-gay, bigoted idiots are not repelled by words such as family and country (overt calls to religion are perhaps a different matter).
Their specific policy reccomendations are OK. The problem is with their marketing – they chose to put “Faith, Flag and Family” in the order they did and when I listen to their spokesmen they harp on about traditional values and how several million people still go to church.
Family and Flag are inclusive ideals; gays are not repelled by “familiy” they just have a different take on it and ethnic minorities can be as proud of their adpoted country as their fellow citizens – just look at the US.
Their actual stated policies would probably get me to vote for them but it would definitely be whilst holding my nose and few of my peers would do the same.
Has anyone spotted any resonance between, “faith, flag, family”, and the “Islamic first, British second” sentiments we have heard expressed elsewhere over the last few weeks.
You might think that after what has happened these tory boys would have played the faith card a bit further down the pack.
And why do these people always bang on about gays. There are virtually no votes in it, voters are largely indifferent except of course all the gays who will vote en masse for Lab/Lib. These Tories really are dumb so why should I bother voting for them even if some of their policies are OK?
I haven’t read the pamphlet yet, but what ‘Faith, Flag and Family’ immediately reminded me of was ‘Kinder, Kuche und Kirche’.
I’M NOT ACCUSING THEM OF BEING NAZIS! But you can bet that their opponents will.
John: In fact, the pamphlet doesn’t mention gays once. It seems to be a preoccupation of the liberal media.
Once again, can I urge commenters to read the pamphlet, rather than media summaries of it, before passing judgement?
The expression Tory Taliban is a moronic phrase that is even sadder because it came from a Tory. Alan Duncan’s use of the word was almost as catastropic to the party as Teresa “Dead from the Neck Up” May’s nasty party comment. The Tories’ opponents don’t need to come up with tags to slam them with because there are always nitwits in the Tory Party willing to do it for them.
Its left of the Tory Party that is so keen on banning things (like smoking, uncomfortable speech etc) not the right.
pommygranate: The state is not your friend… would be our tagline, if we had any. Are you new to Samizdata.net? With due respect to the commenters but it is the editors (alright and sometimes the bloggers) who call the shots here and for myself, this blog would advocate the state’s involvement in anything social only over my dead body.
This does indeed seem to be a rather clumsy attempt to attack Edward Leigh. Based upon his voting record Leigh’s concerns over the amendments to the Civil Partnerships Bill (the 2004 one referred to by Ben Townley in that somewhat amateur hatchetjob attempt) were not some form of homophobic stance but concern that the Government seemed to be showing preference to gay couples, wanting to register as ‘married’, over and above the rights of legality for inheritance purposes of, for example, a brother and sister who live together for a long period of time.
In his amendment clause of 9th November last year – New Clause 1 — Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples) – Leigh stated,
God knows the Conservative Party has a sufficient number of homophobics (note that I didn’t mention Anne Widdecombe by name) within its ranks, as do the LibDems and certainly the Labour party, but Edward Leigh would not appear to be one of them.
Indeed, Adriana. ‘Family’ is almost always code for welfarism for married couples and people who have kids, regardless of whether they’re financially or emotionally stable enought to have them.
The ‘family values’ people may be the ones who relaxed the divorce laws, they may be the ones whose private lives are the tribute vice pays to virtue, and they’re definitely the ones who would deny gay people the social/familial benefits of marriage.
I’m all for the family. It’s a marvellous institution. At least it was until the State got its hands on it.
Well I can’t agree with the post about Tory Taliban. We have seen over the last ten years whats happened to the Tory party when they didn’t appear to have any core values, they have been in a state of collapse.
They have been trying to dance to the tune of the MSM far too much, if the MSM was anything to go by Bush wouldn’t have had a chance but oh no he gets the biggest vote in history.
The Tories need to connect with the the people at from the bottom up not top-down. They should bring back IDS.
Dave – actually, I agree with you about IDS, although I never thought I would say this. He is a down to earth, plodding Tory trying to advance the values he believes in. As it happens, these gibe with the membership of the Conservative Party, although not with Westminster, where they are hyped up to want glamour, fun, gossip with little reference to real life outside Westminster.
Tony Blair’s such a fluffy little self-regarding, yappy little dog (cost of make-up and pom-poms to the British taxpayer £1800) without a single idea in his small brain that he could have been easily defeated by someone who so obviously cleaved to the straightforward values of most British people as IDS. No glamour. Smeared by Labour for employing his wife as his secretary, as opposed to passing an entire European law into ancient British law without a bye-your leave so his wife could make out like a bandit and they could pay off their mortgages.
I see they buried the bad news on bomber day, about Euan, driving a car, knocking an innocent elderly man off his bike who had to be take to hospital. Let’s hope he hadn’t been making the street slick by vomiting.
Considering the amount of TV apperances and speeches he’s expected to give, that’s an amazingly small amount. I think women spend something like half that amount on cosmetics in one year, and that’s just for the materials, not for a makeup artist!
‘An innocent elderly man?’ What’s with the melodrama? The guy was taken to hospital and was reported to have suffered no injuries – which for an elderly man probably means he was riding up the inside of the road, got turned left into and had to have a little sit down to calm his nerves.
If you want to criticise Blair (hell, I can’t stand the man) by all means do but for god sakes… This crap is like calling Bush ‘Shrub’ and then standing back and waiting for the sniggering. Criticise his policies, criticise his lack of statesmanship, criticise something concrete that he (personally) did, but by taking a random tabloid-reader-oriented swipe at him you’re demeaning no-one but yourself.
Awaiting your reply which (if I hadn’t mentioned it here) would doubtless include the line ‘thanks for telling me I’m allowed to criticise Blair’ as that’s a nice throwaway line that gets the reader on your side straight away (Tabloid-readers take note, these are the tricks of the trade!)
Lascaille – who has a narrow view of the world, but I will attempt to reply to him/her nevertheless: Most women pay for their own make-up. We don’t think people get up in the morning and go out to work in, perhaps, a frightening tube or bus, so we can have taxpayer-paid make-up. We want an effect, we pay for our own.
(For people appearing on TV, who do need make-up against the bright lights, the TV studios pay for the materials and make-up artists. People out on the campaign trail and hissing on camera should pay their own way. I believe those are the rules.)
Euan Blair, knocked an elderly – late 60s – man off his bicycle. Master Blair seems to have quite an air of entitlement, given that he was coached through his exams by the British Civil Service. The elderly man does not appear to have been knocked off his bike by an arrogant young driver before Euan did the honours … although which for an elderly man probably means he was riding up the inside of the road, got turned left into and had to have a little sit down to calm his nerves.
Personally, that’s what I put my faith in: facts!
I understood the cost of cosmetics, makeup was for press conferences and the like held in government buildings. At such events, appearance is important – thus one has a makeup artist, hairstylist, and probably a dresser too. You personally may judge appearance to be unimportant, but the press (‘he looked harrowed’ etc comments in the papers) and a lot of the public seem to disagree. For as long as the public and the press are concerned by the prime minister’s appearance, he will have a makeup artist. If your argument is a simple ‘I don’t want to pay for it’ one then why stop there? What about cleaning the floors in the press conference room? It’s not _necessary_ to have a clean floor… etc etc. See how this ends up?
Indeed – this is true, and you correctly pointed out that my ‘he got turned left into’ supposition was indeed supposition, but it seems fairly likely – it’s the most common bike-vs-car accident, it rarely produces injuries and it’s one common to new drivers who don’t think to look for vehicles coming up the inside on a single-lane road. I did say ‘probably’ not ‘I was there watching and…’
Uhoh. What? There’s no relation between the apparent ‘air of entitlement’ and his being coached. Just saying ‘he has an air of entitlement’ doesn’t make it true and saying ‘because he was coached through his exams’ also doesn’t make it true, and even if both were true you’ve failed to prove any link between the two. There’s a ‘logical fallacies’ guide that you can find with a few seconds of googling, I forget what this one’s called but I think it’s something like ‘unrelated precedent and antecedent.’
Anyway, again you’re attacking the person (or rather, the person’s son) instead of the policy. Again.
Lascaille – if you are coached for your A levels by high-powered civil servants – as opposed to your classmates who are obliged to remember their lessons – you have an air of entitlement. Because you believe it. You are special.
Under the category Wha’? – You personally may judge appearance to be unimportant, but the press (‘he looked harrowed’ etc comments in the papers) and a lot of the public seem to disagree. For as long as the public and the press are concerned by the prime minister’s appearance, he will have a makeup artist. If your argument is a simple ‘I don’t want to pay for it’ one then why stop there? What about cleaning the floors in the press conference room? It’s not _necessary_ to have a clean floor… etc etc. See how this ends up?
First, I judge appearance to be extremely important, which is why I don’t want to pay for someone else’s.
I don’t want to pay for Tony Blair to look electable. He can pay for his own slap. No one is electing a floor. Stay on topic
You know, for a minute I thought you were talking about the other Euan.
Scary.
Again: saying it doesn’t make it true. There are many that would ‘feel entitled’ by being coached through their A-levels, especially by important people, but there are many others who would feel humbled by such attention, or feel that they were a failure to require extra coaching. I can’t prove that Euan feels humbled or feels like a failure, neither can you prove that he feels entitled.
Why are you talking about ‘paying for Blair to look electable?’ At the end of the day you could say ‘every single tiny thing a politician does is purely to make him more electable’ so you could extrapolate ‘he makes people keep the floor clean so journalists who come to interview him are impressed by his attention to cleanliness’ or somesuch. Again ‘he puts on makeup so he looks more electable’ or ‘he puts on makeup because he’s been up all night focussing on issues and doesn’t want to look like a zombie in front of the press because they’d just say how ‘the pressure was getting to him’ etc. You’re paying for Blair to be a statesman and a leader of the country, it’s an accepted fact that being a statesman and a leader involves holding press conferences and looking professional, that requires a makeup artist, as it requires clean floors and professional backdrops and lighting etc. Or are you suggesting that press conferences should just be held in any old spare filing cupboard with Blair in a dressing gown or whatever ‘because spending more money on a proper room would make Blair look more professional and thus more electable?’
With due respect to the commenters but it is the editors (alright and sometimes the bloggers) who call the shots here
Adriana
Are the commentators banned from disagreeing with the editors?
The state is not your friend maybe generally true, but is not very practical.
I believe the state’s job is not to order or dictate to its citizens but to incentivise them.
For example, the state has no right to ban smoking from private buildings, but it can incentivise people not to smoke by raising taxes on cigarettes.
I think I speak for many people here when I say the state should keep its goddamn nose out of private behaviour.
Blair has always maintained the illusion that he is the true upholder of family life and Christian values in the UK. Anyone who maintains that image for both his family and for himself thus renders everyone open to close press and public scrutiny for any evidence that will contradict that image, as we have seen with Steven “Shagger” Norris running five mistresses simultaneously as well as a wife at a time when the Conservative Government was running its Back to Basics campaign. Of course Blair’s “moral” obligation does not extend to actually accepting responsbility for one’s actions (David Blunkett, Stephen Byers etc), just in maintaining the veneer of respectability and clawing for a hold on the moral high ground.
Having said that I am sure Euan Blair will enjoy working under Rep David Dreier, as much as did his Chief of Staff Brad Smith.
PS There was a rather scurrilous piece circulating some time ago with regard to Kathryn Blair attempting suicide, as put about by Alan Johnson MP, a junior Labour government minister. Doesn’t this go to show how much more repulsive the Labour Party is than anything/anyone you might find on Samizdata?
Blair’s image is up to him, not the taxpayer. If he wants makeup, sparkling tights, stiletto heels, a Carmen Miranda headdress and a tight gold lamé gown with a side split, it’s up to him. He doesn’t pay for anything else. His lodgings are free, his weekend house is free, his travel is free, his car is free, his protection is free, his communications are free, his travel is free, his rolling couch for his rolling meetings is free. He can pay for his own slap and false eyelashes.
Not to mention the luxury BBJ 737 conversion that Tone and Cher went to Singapore on for the 2012
junketannouncement – cost to taxpayer: £400,000.Maggie always just travelled First Class on British Airways or by RAF transport …
My god, this pair of jacked-up parvenues are insufferable! What was the justification behind this expenditure? And why was Cher tagging along? They’re worse than the Marcoses.
This is why Tone wants to be the (unelected) president of the EU, of course. He has seen what it is like to have an Airforce One and a Marine band, and he hungers for it. Oh, the grandiosity of this pair! Can you imagine John and Norma Major doing this? Or it even crossing their minds?
John Major, bless him, would have been just as happy with a nice Virgin Atlantic Upper Class upgrade and the freebie bag you used to get from them. He certainly wouldn’t have needed a private 737 (click on the ‘BBJ’ link) like the Tone ‘n Cher And Their Amazing High Spending Bureaucrats Travelling Show appear to need.
pommygranate
Oh really? If I want to smoke, that’s none of the state’s damned business. Can people like you really not get it into your skulls that the state has no business in private lives, no business ‘incentivising’ people, no business in slapping taxes on perfectly legal goods because of some prissy, puritan, dislike not only of what individuals do but of the very fact that individuals may actually decide to act of their own free without reference to the state for permission?
If I want to smoke it is nothing to do with you, whether you’re plain Mr pommygranate or the Prime Minister. Once you concede the principle of the state ‘incentivising’ individuals in order to bend and force their behaviour in the direction of something more acceptable to the state, you really are on the slippery slope. Please tell us, pommygranate, what else should the state be ‘incenitivising’ us to do?
Pete_London — obviously, I agree with every word you wrote. The problem, though, is, as long as you have socialised medicine, and the government can pose as the prudent guardian of the public purse, you are on a hiding to nowhere.
A giant step forward in liberty would be scrapping socialised medicine except for the poorest of the poor. Once people accept responsibility for their own health maintenance, and people were prepared to pay higher premiums for self-destructive behaviour, the state could be slapped right back from getting up on its hind legs and “incentivising” people to do anything.
People will quite happily pay higher premiums for their own reckless behaviour, viz young men who pay much higher premiums if they drive a red sports car. They don’t give a damn. They want the red sports car.
Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way, you just end up paying twice – your insurance premiums are higher and you have to pay tax too.
Cigarette and alcohol tax is not based on some logical ‘we tax it to pay for the NHS’ schema, it’s just a much simpler ‘we tax it because we know people will pay’ or ‘because it’s a narcotic, and narcotics are taxed’ circular argument.
Pete_London
If the state reduced duty on cigarettes, there would be an increase in smoking. This would then lead to an increase in healthcare spending and as Verity observes, means i would have to pick up the tab for someone else’s dumb decision. I dont want to do that. If we had to pick up our own healthcare bills, then i would agree, go kill yourself.
Drinking is slightly different example. Excessive alcohol causes an increase in violence. This is socially undesirable. As a law abiding tax payer, i want the freedom to walk on the street without fear of attack. Hence, I want the state to incentivise people not to binge drink and then commit violent crime.
A good way of incentivising people not to be drunk, disorderly or commit violence crime is to throw them in the klink. But we don’t do that in Britain.
This blog is an astonishing piece of grossly hyperbolic nonsense. To call the article an ‘astonishing attack on liberal values’ and label the writers as ‘Taliban’ can only be the product of a writer who obviously has a very warped agenda of his own. Who let this guy loose on here?
Britian has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the Western world and those convicted of violent crime would and should be imprisoned. People who are drunk and disorderly may find themselves in police cells. Are you suggesting that people who are drunk and disorderly (not violent) should be sentenced to a term of imprisonment? If yes, this would be very expensive and not what I would like my taxes spent on.
As long as the state actually exists it may as well finance itself through taxation on drugs like alcohol, there is always the in-built safeguard that if it taxes too much a black market would emerge.
pommygranate
I see, so the only way to get you home safely at night is to slap a 400% tax rate on my pint. I much prefer Verity’s solution – drink as much as you want, but if you assault anyone you’ll be spending a long time in the slammer.
I don’t really agree with your analysis though. Undoubtedly drunkenness contributes to some violence but I have no doubt that the propensity to violence, fostered by decades of welfarism and of statism, resulting in an ever expanding class of people without morals or self restraint, is more culpable than a few pints on a Saturday night. Many people can drink without becoming violent, for those who can’t the deeper reasons lie elsewhere.
Britain has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the western world because it has by far the highest crime rates in the EU.
those convicted of violent crime would and should be imprisoned.
Yes, they should be, but as a rule, they are not. People are not getting banged up until they have a record of 20, 30, 40 crimes for which they have actually been caught. Fred Fearon now has, I believe, 57 convictions and has spent a total of two or three months in jail.
ITYM “Brendon Fearon”. “Fred Barras” was his crony, who your posterboy murdered.
Got a cite for UK vs Europe crime stats? Thought not…
Nope. Just read it in the papers many times and columns by journalists bewailing the fact. I wouldn’t trust any figures that had been put out by the British government. Labour lies.
pommygranate:
Ah, I thought the commenters would disagree with the bloggers, not the editors. I don’t think you quite understand the dynamics of a blog. This is not a forum or a thread, or a chat room or any such online interactive creature. It is the owner of the blog that determines its direction, not the commenters. The contributors get to say things provided we find them worthy and interesting, which we do, and commenters get to say things regardless of whether we find them worthy and interesting. Sometimes we do and often we don’t. Therefore, they do not define the position of the blog…
In this context, your point about state providing incentives for something or other is falling on deaf ears to say the least. We (the editors and the contributors) profoundly disagree with you and the whole point of this blog’s existence is to tell people like you exactly why you are wrong. So, disagree away in comments but just be aware, you are not going to get very far…
Lascaille: I agree that calling Blair funny names is not exactly the way to ridicule his idea (of course it also helps if you come up with something REALLY funny, like Scrofula’s description of Polly Toynbee as ‘Dolly Groinflea’). hehehe
There are two ways to prevent alcohol-induced violence.
i) make alcohol harder to obtain (raise the price, restrict its sale etc)
ii) punish the offender by banging him up and thereby causing the next potential violent drunk to think twice
Both are ways the state can incentivise people not to go on a drink fuelled bender.
Option (ii) is far preferable but for some reason our govt prefers the inferior option (i)
pommygranata writes:
“Both are ways the state can incentivise people not to go on a drink fuelled bender.”
You just don’t get it, do you?
The prevailing feeling here is that it is not the state’s job to do any such thing. The state does far too much as it is and should do a very great deal less.
There’s a nice article making that very point here.
Myself, I’m not much interested in incentivising or inhibiting people at all, as long as they don’t impose themselves on others (and in particular me).
Before anyone accuses me of selfish, self-satisfaction this is not, “I’m all right, Jack”. (I could definitely be better.) It is much more like, “You’re all right, Jack.” I don’t generally insist people are intrinsically good, but I am prepared to trust them to be reasonable.
guy herbert writes:
“There’s a nice article making that very point here.”
Yes, he’s definitely got it right. Though I was a little unnerved at first by the Marxist compass bearing!
I hadn’t heard heard of la Kelly’s ‘house arrest’ proposal. Am I alone in thinking there is something very deeply unsettling abour her?
PG: Well yeah I agree with you on that one! Number II is far preferable. I rather loath the punish all for the few.
Adriana,
There is an excellent article by Jamie Whyte on this in today’s Times. Nevertheless, it’s not the whole story. and I think pommygranate has a point which should not be dismissed out of hand. As a general principle, I’m not in favour of the state (or indeed any higher authority) trying to regulate the behaviour of citizens. It also shouldn’t attempt to protect them from the consequences of their actions.
But certain actions of individuals have implications for everyone else. Drinking is perhaps an example. You may say that the state shouldn’t interfere with, or disincentivise, the right of individuals to drink provided they don’t break the law as a result or expect other people to pay for the resulting medical problems. Fair enough. But what if it transpired that there were increased policing and legal system costs of removing tax disincentives on drinking which would fall, to an unacceptable degree on the general taxpayer as a result?
Similarly, if tobacco taxes were removed and smoking increased as a result, could we rely on smokers to pay the higher medical insurance premiums? What if many didn’t and we were then left with a choice of letting these people die untreated or paying from general taxation (unfunded by tobacco tax revenue) the cost of their treatment?
So it’s not a black or white choice. My view is that we have gone much too far along the lines of state interference in many areas and removing personal responsibility and liberty. But it’s not entirely clear that the state (as far as it represents, or should represent, the taxpayer) should be totally disinterested. I’m inclined to think that where there are these dilemmas, the solutions should generally be tackled at a much more local (i.e. not central government) level, but this still doesn’t make the balance easy to decide.
Incidentally, I hear Edward Leigh on the radio this morning and he seemed to be talking a lot of sense.
However his article is somewhat strange and seems much less satisfactory. He seems to use the term ‘liberal’ in the way the Americans use it nowadays, meaning left wing and taxpayer funded – he describes Blair as a liberal, which I find an astonishing distortion of the meaning of the world. Blair is the exact opposite a state-interferer and social engineer.
He also differentiates between “free trade” and “fair trade” – not a distinction which I recognise. If it’s not fair, it’s not free and vice versa.
Guy – it’s an excellent article and one i wholeheartedly agree with. Jamie Whyte underlines the importance of incentives.
The proliferation of single parent families and the increase in yobbish behaviour is a disaster for this country. I firmly believe it is the state’s job to incentivise people not to have children if they can’t afford them and not to behave threateningly to others.
It is just not acceptable to walk away, as GCooper might, and say “not the government’s job, mate”
So how do you do this?
You reduce the amount of welfare (perhaps progressively for each child) and you increase the penalty for lawbreakers.
When there are consequences of an individual’s action for the rest of society, the state must act.
HJHJ – thankyou for your more articulate post
pommygranate
Can you not understand simple English? Whytes’ article advocates less ‘incentivising’ by the government.
Whether or not people have children is not the state’s business, it’s no-one else’s business. Likewise, paying for the offspring of others is not anyone’s business but the parents. This is what he’s saying. Try reading the article again. He’s saying the state should keep out regardless, this is not the same as ‘incentivising’ people not to have children if they can’t afford them.
Verity:
“Tony Blair’s such a … that he could have been easily defeated by … IDS.”
So. If only the Conservative Party had retained IDS, theyd have won the election.
Riiight.
What’s the weather like on planet Zorg this time of year?
Pete_London,
In fact, Jamie Whyte’s article advocates removing the current negative incentives to responsible behaviour.
The question is whether the government should be entirely neutral or should implement (and if so, to what extent) disincentives to bad behaviour, especially that which is likely to cost other taxpayers money. Laws and associated penalties are the simplest example of this and it is possible that, in some cases, the burden on the taxpayer would be less if positive financial disincentives existed. This is what makes your argument slightly simplistic, although I personally generally favour the government taking a neutral, i.e. non-interventionist, view wherever possible.
180 degrees wrong: the state has for quite some time been incentivising people to be feckless. The welfare state reduces the cost of foolishness and as a result we see… more foolishness.
The conclusion I draw from this is not that the state should alter the way it incentives people but rather that the larger and more interventionist a state gets, the more bad decisions it will make and the weaker civil society will become. We need stronger civil society, and that requires less state rather than a state which just offers the ‘right’ incentives.
As long as welfare is a political prize that can be offered in return form votes, a democratic state cannot reform itself, at least not for long.
I am inclined to agree with SLR. A palid creature like IDS never had a chance against Blair. I find Blair an endless source of rage within myself. I found IDS a dependable soporific.
As long as welfare is a political prize that can be offered in return form votes, a democratic state cannot reform itself In fact, when so many millions of votes are bought and paid for by the governing party in the form of welfare “entitlements”, utilising money paid in taxes by people who are voting for the opposing party, can the country rightfully be called a democratic state?
Old Jack Tar and Lurch – From everything I read and heard from friends living there, the Conservatives in the country at large rather liked IDS. He was ex-military, intensely patriotic, he had the right idea about Tony Blair and the right idea about welfare and self-motivation. He was rather dull, like most people, but steady and trustworthy.
The Conservative voter wasn’t looking for someone thrilling. It was the roiling nest of vipers at Westminster who wanted rid of IDS. I think if he’d had more time, Conservative voters would not have stayed at home in such huge numbers. He was a genuine alternative to Blair and Za-NuLab.
The idea that politicans have to be ‘charismatic’ started with John F Kennedy, an untrustworthy son of a bitch if ever there was one.
Pete_London
Quite true about drinking. When I have two much ale, I’m generally more pleasant company than when stressed out and sober.
One thing that I think will seriously help our drinking/violence problem is something that this government are doing (praising NL is something you won’t hear me do often). 24 hour drinking is the answer.
People seem to think that it will end up with more violence, but if they’d actually go out, they’d see where most of the trouble is – it’s cold, tired people arguing over taxis, in my experience. Stagger leaving times, and people will leave when it suits them.
In fact, people will probably drink less. The 11pm closing time means that if you’ve been drinking until 10:30, you’ll probably stay to get what you can. With no upper quota on time, people will just drink until they want to go home.
Tim
I can’t agree, I just wouldn’t last that long.
I thought it was Goebbels not Kennedy who pioneered the politics of charismatic demagoguery?
I recall some documentary a while back which showed the Fuhrer doing all the tricks, cuddling babies, going on walkabouts and such, in split screen with Our Dear Leader doing the exact same thing.
Apparently all this stuff was dreamed up by Goebbels, who was by all accounts a spin doctor extraordinaire.
During my student days, my College unwittingly conducted a micro-economic experiment that showed why “Higher Education professionals” should never be let out into the real world.
To combat drunkeness, they restricted the opening hours of the College bar to 6-8:30 from the previous 6-11. However, they failed to appreciate the significance of the fact that a pint of lager cost approx 100% more in the local pub.
Needless to say, ’8 before 8′ became an economic necessity rather than a game.
TLT writes:
“Apparently all this stuff was dreamed up by Goebbels, who was by all accounts a spin doctor extraordinaire.”
And was reincarnated as Peter Mandelson. Of course he was a disgusting, hateful, twisted, satanic, unprincipled, devious, manipulative, lying scumbag, who supported one of the most deeply unpleasant and authoritarian governments Europe has seen in the past 200 years.
It wouldn’t be fair on Goebbels to confuse the two.