Samizdata

A British court has ruled that environmentalism is ‘protected’ as it is functionally indistinguishable from a religion and thus cannot be discriminated against by a company.

We are now only one logical step away from disestablishing the Church of England and making environmentalism the official state religion, a mandated one in fact, complete with inquisitors and witch finders.

To the complete and utter surprise of… er… well no one really… Dave Cameron has refused to jump the fence yet again. This worthless Labour-Lite jackanapes will not give Britain a vote on the Lisbon Treaty after all.

Yeah I know he promised we would get a vote. And you believed him?

Vote UKIP rather than waste your vote on BlueLabour and the principle-free weathervane who leads it… and if the powers that be have destroyed UKIP by election day via the courts, stay the fuck home and do not dignify the worthless Cameron with a vote that will simply be an endorsement of more-of-the-same.

Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive to the Royal Society of Arts and a former adviser to Tony Blair, recently wrote an article in the magazine, Prospect, on the political potential of new developments in behaviourial economics, neuroscience and related disciplines. Such an enterprise is always difficult, in so far as new research is often part of an expanding research programme and questions are not fully answered. Therefore, one should be careful in the enthusiastic application of such results to the political arena.

Taylor’s article marries the politics and selected research results, with section headings such as the Social Democratic brain and the Conservative brain. Without citing too much detail, the aim of the article is to describe and promote this research as a source of justification for policy and power:

Much of this research makes good reading for social democrats. By highlighting our psychological frailties and the way these contribute to market epidemics, behavioural economics makes a powerful case for regulation, paternalism and measures to promote feelings of security. Nor is this the only encouragement for the traditional left.

Homo oeconomicus is circumscribed by the explorations of rationality undertaken by neuroscience and social Darwinism, but the disciplinary failure of the social sciences, the tabula rasa, is erased from the historical backdrop, as this draws attention to their total failure. A neoliberal dominance in our understanding of the human is conjured up to allow the entry of this new legitimation. The vision that Taylor pictures is of mankind as a social being, who requires constraints and direction through social institutions and norms. Such a general vision that marries up with your philosophy is the danger that the contemporary amateur interpretation of scientific results will conclude.

Given that there is no consensus on human nature, merely a greater understanding of our predispositions and controversy over how they relate to the social sphere, is it not arrogant to presume that existing political ideas have the key to unlock the controversial interplay of the social and the inherited. Such interventions in the past have proved disastrous, as the race science of the twentieth century demonstrates. Caution is a watchword here.

The byproduct of this article is the realisation that neither the Tories or Labour can articulate moral arguments and are reduced to tagging their miserable ideas on to the emergent exploration of human nature for the sheen of scientific authority. Economists and intellectuals working in these disciplines are seduced by the consultation of those in power and turn towards the exercise of application in a political sphere.

This article is a useful reminder of what both parties share. Supping from the same well via ‘libertarian paternalism’ or behaviourial economics, we begin to see the outlines of a commonality in approach, though there are differences in institutional and political implementation. Neither approach from Labour or the Tories is a friend to freedom.

I am in one of my favourite bars, in a railway arch in Peckham in South East London. Good music. Friendly staff and customers. Czech beer on tap. A quite decent Mendoza malbec. Fast and free Wifi (yes, I am hiding behind my laptop. Yes, I am a nerd. If you do not like that, well fuck you). The woman opposite me seems to be staring a little too excessively into the eyes of the man opposite me. Nice for them, no doubt (and yes, I may be bitter, although I am perfectly sincere when I say that this is nice for them and I wish them well).

However, a member of staff just came over, telling me that (sadly) the bar was closing soon (it is 10pm), and asking me to sign a petition, requesting that their licensing hours be increased, so that they can close at midnight rather than the present 10pm.

The story behind this is this. During the first world War, licensing hours in Britain were imposed, requiring bars to close at 11pm. Allowing people to go out drinking after this apparently hurt the war effort. In my native Australia, a 6pm closing hour was imposed at the same time, In some jurisdictions this lasted until the 1960s. But I digress. And this is now generally gone.

My friends from the Latin countries have always been shocked by the 11pm closing hours in England. Coming from countries where they would barely considering going out before midnight, they have always found this odd, to say the least. But the 11pm close was fairly standard, none the less.

However, three or four years ago, things in the UK changed. Responsibility for licensing bars had for a long time been the responsibility of magistrates. If an applicant could demonstrate that he was responsible, then a licence to open a bar would generally be given.

However, the law was changed, so that licensing became the responsibility of local councils – theoretically elected, but much easily bullied by national government than magistrates. Theoretically, this meant more flexibility with respect to licensing hours. At the time, this was sold as allowing bars to open later. In some parts of London, this is true. Generally, the louder and less pleasant places to be are the ones with the later opening hours.

On the other hand, I am in a bar at 10pm on a Monday night. This bar is full of perfectly nice people who are no trouble to anyone. And we are being thrown out onto the street at 10pm.

Why?

Update: As I was on my way out, I stopped and asked the landlord for more details as to the situation. Apparently he has a “facilities licence” allowing him to keep his bar open until midnight, but simultaneously, the council has invoked “planning laws” requiring him to close at 10pm on most nights. He pointed out to me what I knew already, which was that his bar occupies an arch underneath the main London Bridge to Brighton railway, on which (loud) trains run 24 hours a day. My experience is that I was visiting a pleasant bar containing a few perfectly nice people enjoying themselves. Heaven forbid that.