There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.
– Sam Harris, rebutting the daft charge that a denial of belief in the afterlife or a supreme being must open the doors to hell on earth.
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It is hard sometimes for someone who lives in what might be called the “Westminster village” to understand how monumentally boring are all the commentaries in the political press about Which Cabinet Minister is In and Who is the Favoured One of Gordon, etc. In the Daily Telegraph today, Rachel Sylvester ponders the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alisdair Darling, is a puppet of Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister. Oh, the horror. To be honest though, much that I despise this government, it seems to show a lack of historical perspective to complain about the sheer dominance of a Prime Minister over Treasury affairs. I have been reading Douglas Hurd’s rather good biography of Sir Robert Peel, the Prime Minister of the mid-19th Century. As premier, Peel delivered budgets himself rather than get his Chancellor to do so. The budgets, which overthrew the Corn Laws – a system of trade tariffs – split the Tories at the time between the old landed gentry (who wanted tariffs) and the ‘Peelites’ (who wanted laissez faire). But Peel was using his old prerogative as ‘First Lord of the Treasury’ as the Prime Minister is known, to take the lead in economic and financial affairs. In the late 1980s, the same happened when Nigel Lawson, the Chancellor of the time, tried and failed to persuade Mrs Thatcher to accede to his demand that Britain join the European exchange rate mechanism (we did eventually join it, and a right disaster that turned out to be). Gordon Brown is guilty of many sins, but leading economic policy is not one of them. The problem is not the personnel, but the policies themselves. None of the major figures in the current government favour a more modest role for the state; everything else, my dears, is pure detail. November 6th, 2007 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
 Good luck, Mr Dodge. Andrew’s recent diagnosis has reminded me – I am 41 – to get a health check done once a year and catch these gremlins early (I have been remarkably lucky with my health, but no point in taking it for granted). What a way to mark Guy Fawke’s night. November 5th, 2007 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
I started off wanting to cheer this article – an angry denunciation of the rich folk who often back Green causes – but I then began to wonder whether I was falling for what amounts to an ad hominem argument, and felt rather ashamed of myself. To be sure, it is true that many greenies are extremely well off, or comfortable members of a middle class that feels guilty about material wealth – the legacy of all kinds of crap cultural and political ideas – but is it really a killer argument that a cause X or Y is backed by rich folk like Zac Goldsmith or Peter Melchett? What counts in the end is are their ideas right or wrong? For instance, Bjorn Lomborg is a sharp debunker of eco-cant and I think his take on the more extreme forms of greenery is accurate, but what does it matter whether Lomborg is a middle class Danish academic, heir to a massive fortune, or a humble shop worker? There is a broader point here. At the Libertarian Alliance conference last weekend, I could not help reflecting on the many posh, incredibly rich folk who were old fashioned liberals (or Whigs, as they used to be called). The walls of the National Liberal Club – a fine institution – are adorned with wonderful portraits of gentlemen in frock coats and women in elegant dresses, or stern-looking 19th century businessmen and industrialists. One of the benefits of having an independent income is that it gives a group of people time to think about certain issues that cannot be done by someone working long hours for a salary and who has to please a boss; independence of means also can encourage independence of mind. So Brendan O’Neil is wrong on this occasion, although I share his skepticism on green scares 100%. I do not give a monkey’s whether Jonathan Porritt is posh or not; it is his reactionary ideas to roll back the glories of modern industrial civilisation that bother me very much. November 2nd, 2007 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
Whatever happened to getting your head down and doing the damn job? Whatever happened to going bowling in your own time? You want to take some of the crew from work? Well, that’s nice, too. And if a more fruitful professional relationship between a close-knit group of employees is the result, well isn’t that peachy? But really, if we are all big about this, shouldn’t we be able to interact productively without the panacea of fake camaraderie or a day throwing up in a corporate box at the races? Some of the 7/7 bombers went white-water rafting before the event, you know; and what great team players they turned out to be. – Martin Samuel. I have never suffered a “team building” trip away from the office, thank god (my boss has better things to do). November 2nd, 2007 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
I was trying to think of something profound to say but in the end, what the heck……… November 1st, 2007 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
The campaign to become Mayor of London must be taking its toll. Boris Johnson writes today that the interests of the US and the rest of the world would be best served if Hillary Clinton reaches the White House. His reasoning is thin at best. Perhaps the real problem is that America, even though it is such a vast nation, has only been able to produce Presidential candidates of such dreadful quality as this lot (I am afraid that applies partly even to Ron Paul, for whom I have a lot of sympathy). November 1st, 2007 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
At the recent Libertarian Alliance conference in London, one of my favourite speakers, Leon Louw, mocked the idea that water on earth is scarce. Two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered with the wet stuff, in fact. What people mean when they say that water is scarce is not that there is a lack of H20, rather, there is a lack of drinkable, clean water. But the idea that water is scarce is, in and of itself, bonkers. As Leon said, if an alien from outer space talked to some ecological doomsters and heard their moans about water shortages, he would probably fly off in search of more intelligent life elsewhere. Heaven knows what an intelligent alien would make of George Monbiot. October 30th, 2007 | 49 comments - (Comments are closed)
You know the feeling. A market rises like a rocket; there is lots of gushing news items about how market X or Y is the hottest thing since the iPod; but there is a lot of muttering about the inevitable fall, the decline, or even the monster crackup. Well, it has sort of happened with the US credit market this year and the collapse of sub-prime mortgages (in plain English, the business of lending money to people who are often bad repayers). I have this sort of queasy feeling now about China. Do not get me wrong: I am delighted that China is a poster child for how things improve if you ditch certain aspects of collectivism, but it is still a long, long way from what a free society could or should be. And some of the economic data that comes out of that vast country gives economists cause for concern. October 29th, 2007 | 88 comments - (Comments are closed)
If this film, a sequel, is half as good as Elizabeth, then it will be one to wait for. Blanchett was simply outstanding in the first movie. I was interested in the comment by the actor, Clive Owen, who said he was not bitter at being passed over for the role of 007. I am not sure I entirely believe him – but then there was a lot of spying going on in Elizabethan England, so instead of holding a Walther PPK, he gets to use a rapier sword instead. Arguably, M16 and its cousins can trace some of their origins back to that period. And let’s face it, Cate Blanchett is certainly easy on the eye. October 26th, 2007 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
I drive around London at weekends occasionally – I have a car but do not bother to use it to get work (I can reach my office in Westminster on foot, thanks to living nearby Pimlico). But when I do get behind the wheel, the congestion is terrible, not just at the usual peak times. Getting out of London often takes longer than on the open road. For example, whenever I go to visit my parents in Suffolk, at least half of the journey time is taken up by driving from Pimlico through the eastern reaches of London before actually hitting Essex on the A12. Pretty much the same dire situation applies if you head north, south or west. Has the congestion charge, introduced by London Mayor Ken Livingstone, made much difference? I doubt it; it always looked like a revenue-raiser to me, whatever the spin. While in theory I have no ideological problems with the charge – if the roads are genuinely privately owned, that is – in the current context the charge seems like a bit of a con to me. Or at least it is unless we can get rid of the curse of the Bus Lane. But then the charge does not apply at weekends, so my view might be affected if I had to drive during weekdays. On those rare times when I have done so, I thought the traffic was pretty heavy. This guy agrees with me. But what to do about it? Well, cutting down the number of buses – heavily subsidised – might be a start since they hog up so much space; some road widening might be workable in places but given London’s densely-packed streets and historic buildings, maybe not easily doable. Maybe I should face the facts: if I want to drive without raised blood pressure, live in Nevada. October 26th, 2007 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
Lincoln Allison, a contributor to the excellent Social Affairs Unit blog has this rather amusing, if at times harsh, list of various people he thinks are not quite the greats they are cracked up to be. Revealing the conservative tilt of that blog, his candidates are:
Maybe I am getting soft and liberal (in the US sense) in my early middle age, but with the exception of Guevara, I rather like most of the above, or at least I do not get as exercised as some right-of-centre folk do. Diana? Well, she was annoying, or at least the hysteria over her death was, but I was saddened by her death, sorry for her sons and relations and would rather she was still with us. Lennon? A bit of a nob as a person, maybe, but a brilliant musician – Revolver is one of my favourite albums. Osborne – no real opinion, although I loved his personification of evil in Get Carter. Then there is Rushdie: I just cannot agree with Allison; for all that I cannot be bothered to tackle his fiction, I admire his unbending stance on Islamic fanaticism and his no-compromise approach to free speech. And then there is dear, dead George Best (I met him a few times). Allison makes the rather unusual approach of not actually attacking George Best’s drinking or womanising but attacks his skill as a footballer, claiming that Northern Irish players like Danny Blanchflower were greater as they achieved success with “lesser” teams (I am sure Spurs fans will be galled to hear that their lot was a lesser team in the 1960s than Manchester United. Spurs in fact won a sackload of trophies in that decade). He also says Best could not cope with Italian-style defenders. Well, he did not play against Italy much so how do we know and Best made mincemeat of the likes of top European sides Benfica and Real Madrid. His demolition of the former team at their home ground in 1966 – the year I was born – remains one of the highlights of 20th century football. October 16th, 2007 | Comments are closed
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