We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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Inexplicably many seem to have been surprised by Dave Cameron’s predictable backtrack on confronting the EU’s constant slow motion power grab… however even those credulous enough to have not sussed Cameron’s weathervane nature ages ago are now getting the message loud and clear.
After abandoning plans to hold a referendum on Europe, following last week’s ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, Mr Hague said the Tories accepted that constitutional reform would not be on the EU agenda for some years.
The solutions are actually quite obvious and straightforward:
1. simply do not vote for a Cameron-lead Tory party as a vote for them is a vote for more of the same. Vote UKIP instead. This could mean Cameron will win anyway (which means we get more of the ways things are now but at least does not reward the Tories for being BlueLabour) or Labour wins again (which means we get more of the way things are now). Either way it makes sense to vote UKIP.
2. get rid of the disastrous Cameron, who is in effect the UK version of the disastrous George Bush (i.e. a nominal ‘conservative’ who will continue to expand the state) and get a Tory leader who has some balls and at least a modicum of principle.
This is not rocket science, it is just stating th bloody obvious. Hague’s Cameron mouthpiece statement is already setting up the Tory party for a lengthy period of doing nothing meaningful on the issue of the EU. Anyone who thinks “constitutional reform would not be on the EU agenda for some years” does not mean “constitutional reform will not be on the EU agenda ever” is a jackass and I have no interest in even debating with them.
Either… clean house within the Tory Party and get rid of Cameron… or vote UKIP. Voting for a party under a jackanapes like Cameron makes no sense at all, unless the current state of affairs is actually what you want.
Blogger and debunker of various economic fallacies, Tim Worstall, points out something that tends to be forgotten in some of the angrier, gloomier commentary about the European Union and the recently ratified Lisbon Treaty. We – the UK that is – can leave if we wish to do so, and it will be a lot less complex than such a process can be made to appear. That surely is the 800 llb gorilla in the drawing room – we can get out pretty fast if the whole edifice becomes intolerable. And there is nothing that any EU bureaucrat or their political allies can do about it. How likely are they to ever use a military option? Hmmm.
“David Cameron ditches referendum and backs away from EU bust-up” chuckles the Guardian… followed by “Eurosceptics welcome ‘never again’ rhetoric”.
So in effect Cameron is saying “yes I know I said we get a vote before… “iron clad” was the words I used… but if those mean old Euros want to grab even more power than all that stuff you are not going to get a vote on after all, we will have a referendum next time. Really, you can trust me”.
Of course the Eurosceptics are happy, because after all, if David Cameron promises something, you can be sure he will keep his “iron-clad” word, right? Amazing.
Never forget that the party of Winston Churchill was also the party of Neville Chamberlain.
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.
Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations.
– David Cameron in 2007.
The obvious conclusion being that he must not be allowed to become Prime Minister as his “cast-iron guarantees” are as firm as limp wet paper. Pathetic.
Bishop Hill:
Devil’s Kitchen has a must-read post up, detailing the increasing use of enabling legislation by the government. And he doesn’t swear at all – must be serious.
Indeed.
I daydream that one day, a British Cabinet Minister will grab hold of one of the laws that DK writes about, where it says that, if there is a crisis (and it is up to him to decide), then he, the British Cabinet Minister, may do whatever he considers to be appropriate (i.e. whatever he damn well pleases). I daydream that he, the British Cabinet Minister, will bring into the House of Commons a huge list itemising all the laws that he is now going to repeal, just like that, no ifs no buts no discussion, because he, the British Cabinet Minister referred to in one of the laws, says so, on account of there being a crisis caused by all the damn laws.
Impossible, you say? Very probably. But it is surprising how much of history consists of impossible dreams that were dreamed during earlier bits of history.
Much garbage has been written about the Professor Nutt affair. The notion that governments hire scientists to make informed decisions is laughable and the fact scientists are outraged that the government fired Nutt for contradicting the official line on drugs is a measure of their self-absorbed pomposity.
Governments hire scientists for the same reason companies often commission consultants to study some aspect of their business and make a report… i.e. to justify a course of action the board already wants to do but which they need to justify to investors. Similarly the job of a scientist on the government lists is to remain torpid until wheeled out in front of a camera to drone the government line with the caption “This man is a SCIENTIST and therefore the government’s edicts are incontrovertible and must be OBEYED”.
Professor Nutt was a stage prop, nothing more, and he is a fool to be surprised he was canned for being off-message. Of course what he said about marijuana and alcohol was true, any fool can see that. But how is that relevant?
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.
The predicted insanity of “quantitative easing” (i.e. re-inflating the bubble) is laid bare:
Sharp increases in share prices have improved the outlook for pension funds in every major developed nation apart from the UK, according to research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The news coincides with figures which reveal that the deficits in Britain’s largest privately-sponsored defined benefit schemes have soared by £15bn to £77bn, wiping out almost all the gains achieved by market increases the previous month. […] The deterioration is largely an unhappy consequence of quantitative easing (QE). Pension funds’ deficits depend on two factors: the value of their assets, much of which are equities, but also the potential amounts they will have to pay out when people retire in the future. These future liabilities have been pushed higher as QE has depressed yields on gilts and other bonds
I would quite like to see the people responsible for one of the greatest rolling acts of theft in recent history hanging from lampposts. Bernie Madoff was a minor league player by comparison.
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.
Encourage adults to consume alcoholic beverage in a bar setting. Set an arbitrary closing, thus to encourage rapid consumption during the final 15 minutes. Throw out on to the street, inebriated, disenchanted drinkers, mostly young males. And here’s the clincher, all at the same time. Ensure that all other bars in the immediate area follow the same pattern. Then act surprised when incidents of violence and criminal damage spike.
Suppose for one perverted moment that an increase in violence and criminal damage were the intention. The present arrangement could hardly be improved upon.
– The hilariously pseudonymous commenter ‘Mustapha Jihad‘
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