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This is not the first time that the Home Office has used its discretionary powers to bar someone from entering the UK, nor surely will it be the last, but I cannot recall in my adult lifetime such powers ever being used against an elected, serving politician from a friendly, democratic country. And a member of the EU to boot!
Geert Wilders had been refused entry to the United Kingdom to broadcast his controversial anti-Muslim film Fitna in the House of Lords.
Mr Wilders said he had been told that in the interests of public order he will not be allowed to come to Britain.
Under normal circumstances, I would devote the rest of this article to speculation about the reasons behind this extraordinary decision. But, in this case, that would be redundant.
We all know why.
Over at Devil’s Kitchen, the blogger subjects Guardian columnist and socialist Polly Toynbee to a thorough take-down. One thing that struck me about this piece is how obviously rattled advocates of Big Government now are by the activities of the Taxpayers’ Alliance. The TPA has been one of the most effective organisations in recent years for pointing to the waste of public sector spending and highlighting where taxpayers’ money ends up. It is, of course, a statement on the still-feeble nature of the Tory opposition that this sort of work is not being done by members of the opposition in Parliament. So the TPA has filled a void. It is now drawing the rage of the left that sees power slipping away. In the case of any columnist for the Guardian, of course, the rage is matched by economic fear: the fear that in any possible cull of public sector spending, many of the public jobs that are advertised in the Guardian’s pages will disappear, causing a mighty blow to the Guardian’s finances, not to mention a serious reduction in Labour’s client class.
Meanwhile, the Guardian has been running a noisy campaign against so-called tax havens – which on some definitions are just places that operate low or no taxes. The horror. And yet the Guardian is structured within a highly tax efficient trust, meaning that its tax bills are low. How conveeenient, as they used to say on Saturday Night Live.
The blogger Slugger O’Toole expresses a very sensible view, in my opinion, about the recent case of a NHS nurse who was disciplined for offering to pray for a patient. I am all in favour of the separation of church and state, but then would reflect that this case shows just what happens when hospitals are part of the state and not part of the non-state sector, where they can be run by secular or religious groups without such issues arising. If a hospital is run by a church or has an endowment froma religiously-minded gazillionaire, and staff want to pray with its patients and the patients are okay with that, what exactly is the problem? Many UK hospitals, as their names often suggest – such as St Thomas’s Hospital in London – were founded by churches and religious orders. For all that I am not a religious person, I can greatly admire the spirit of compassion that motivated many religious believers to work in or endow hospitals with funds. Many of Britain’s greatest hospitals were started by churches and their history goes back hundreds of years.
“…when things go wrong, we seek bogeymen rather than face up to our own shortcomings. We expect instant, painless solutions to self-inflicted problems. Britain’s booze culture is blamed on the slick advertisements of drinks companies and the cut-price tactics of supermarkets. Our obesity epidemic is the fault of junk-food outlets and confectionery suppliers. And our personal indebtedness, the highest it has ever been, is the result of a pernicious campaign by greedy banks to enslave their customers. Oh yes, and the crash was caused by beastly Americans.”
Jeff Randall, economics columnist and broadcaster.
Clueless. The Independent has what it thinks is good news for employees:
The minimum amount of money that employers must pay staff they make redundant is set to be increased by the Government, The Independent has learnt. In another attempt to ease the pain of those worst affected by the recession, ministers have launched a review of the minimum payments to which people are entitled by law when they lose their job. With around 1,500 posts being axed each week, unemployment will soon pass the two million mark and could eventually rise to more than three million.
So, what is the predicatble effect of making redundancies more costly to employers? You at the back, there! A firm wants to stay in business. It needs to keep cash in hand in order to do so. Looking ahead it sees uncertainty as to whether it can afford the wage bill, and it has to balance the cost of keeping people on and maintaining capacity, with the cost of losing them, and its ability to continue in business after they have left.
Yes, Purnell minor, if the cash lost by making people redundant increases, they will be made redundant sooner, and firms will be more averse to taking the risk of hiring.
As a crude estimate, we might expect the cash constraint to require someone to be sacked sooner by the amount of time in which the cost of employing them would accrue to equal the increase in statutory redundancy they would be owed. (Which is the sort of ‘linear programming’ people could do before spreadsheets and Monte Carlo methods: the wisdom of the 1970s for a government that has worked so hard to return us to them.)
Those firms that do not make such precautionary sacrifices increase their risk of total failure, and none of their workers getting redundancy pay. So higher redundancy pay means more redundancies and more business failures, in an uncertain proportion.
What’s worse, it is likely that such a change in the rules that is signalled in advance will mean large, well-informed and unsentimental corporations (which are typically more risk averse, and more capital intensive, anyway) reducing their headcounts to get under the wire. Even “a review” undertaken to give an impression of doing something, and as a sop to the trades unions, is likely to influence hiring and firing policies. And not in a good way.
Roger Thornhill, an occasional commenter here who also has his own blog, asks what is all the fuss about a foreign firm in the UK hiring foreign workers? He points out that if a UK firm operating in say, Germany, were to bring over some of its own staff, it might cause outrage among the locals, but then UK unions would protest at their members being banned from working abroad.
The truth is that when Gordon Brown made his comment, “British jobs for British workers”, he stoked the flames of a protectionist labour force doctrine that is now threatening to get out of hand. The disgrace of it is that even when the UK economy was growing relatively strongly, millions of able-bodied UK adults were not working and living off benefits. The tax, benefit and education system conspire to keep large numbers of the indigenous population out of the workforce. So naturally, firms turn to other sources of labour if they feel they can get a better deal.
In these tough times I feel sympathy for skilled workers who have felt themselves to be frozen out by a foreign employer doing business in the UK, but the brutal fact has to be faced that as far as many employers are concerned, some of the locals are just not as employable as foreigners. It is a terrible indictment of what has happened to the UK labour market under this administration. Untangling the mess is, or should be, a priority lest the situation fans the flames of protectionism, with disastrous consequences.
Update: The always cool-headed Chris Dillow puts up a feast of links explaining the impact of such foreign labour on local markets.
The UK’s National Gallery – a state-backed institution – and galleries in Scotland have secured £50 million to pay to keep a Titian painting “for the nation”, using state – taxpayer’s money – for this purpose. A Scottish Labour MP has criticised the use of taxpayers’ funds on this painting, arguing that such money would be better spent on supporting arts eduction for school children instead. The story is here. Naturally, the idea that a work of art that has been loaned by its owner is private property and should not be thought of as a something that belongs to “the nation” is not addressed in the article I link to, since that is outside the intellectual frame of reference either of the arts bureaucrats who spend this public money, or indeed the Labour MP who criticises them.
Leave aside the hopefully temporary problems posed by the credit crunch. For the past decade or so, there has been a huge amount of money swirling around among the rich and even not-so-rich to be spent on the arts. There is no need, in my view, for a penny of taxpayer’s money to be spent on the arts. Leave aside whether you love or loathe the things that public funds are used to support: the point is that these things should not be receiving tax-raised funds at all. Let the rich of today patronise what budding Titians, Raphaels or Turners that might be out there.
It is on days like these that I am glad that I work for a web-based business and that I work from home for part of the day anyway. Judging by how severe weather has hit the UK overnight, rendering the UK public transport network immobile, that is just as well. The London Underground – with the exception of the Victoria line – is down. Buses and other transport like trains are severely affected.
I am hearing that this is the heaviest snowfall since 1991. We have already had some severe cold in early January. Whether this is part of a trend I have no idea. But some of us are rediscovering how to cope with severely cold weather in the UK. I have a father who is recovering from a major operation in hospital and may not be able to go home because of the weather.
Take care out there.
If there is anyone out there who still harbours doubts about the narcotic power of narrative, then I urge them to critically examine recent British history. This will confirm that such is the hallucinogenic power of narrative (or ‘discourse’ if you prefer) that it can capture an entire society in its analgesic embrace while being, not just divorced from the reality, but the demonstrably diametric opposite of the reality.
Since the late 1990’s everybody outside of us hardy but microscopic band of ideologues (and I do mean ‘everybody’ including his brother, mother, plumber and household pets) has been tub-thumpingly convinced that we have endured “the most right-wing government in history”. Oh my Lord, how right-wing it was! Uber-right-wing, ultra-rightist, extreme-uber-ultra-babyeatingly-sealcubbashingly-right-wing. Lord deliver us! Good people everywhere rolled their eyes heavenward and wondered just what was to become of us all in the new, ultra-neo-liberal, so-called-free-market, wild-west-uber-rampant-capitalist free-for-all.
Not us, of course. We could see the ugly truth that we were actually being sovietised. We told them all too. In fact, we shouted it from the blogtops. But was anybody listening? Were they hell. No, they were far too engaged in the generally agreed business of guffing on interminably about the rampant-wild-west-unregulated-greedy-so-called-laissez-faire-out-of-control-cowboy-shoot-’em-up-neo-liberal-free-for-all-unrestrained capitalist nightmare that was destined to reduce our once great nation to a dissipated radiation burst of lonely, atomised wage slaves chanting ‘greed is good’ as we are flung out to the frozen corners of an uncaring, Thatcherite universe.
So, do you think this incongruent moment of flying-piggery in today’s Times is going to incite a re-think?
PARTS of the United Kingdom have become so heavily dependent on government spending that the private sector is generating less than a third of the regional economy, a new analysis has found.
The study of “Soviet Britain” has found the government’s share of output and expenditure has now surged to more than 60% in some areas of England and over 70% elsewhere….
The state now looms far larger in many parts of Britain than it did in former Soviet satellite states such as Hungary and Slovakia as they emerged from communism in the 1990s, when state spending accounted for about 60% of their economies.
Not a bit of it. By this evening, these stark truths will have disppeared down the memory-hole and, by tomorrow morning, everyone will be getting on with the urgent business of finding a strategy for bringing all this rampant, wild-west, cowboy capitalism back under control.
Does anybody have a truth serum?
A civil liberties pressure group has called for the resignation of Prof Janet Hartley, the academic responsible for banning Islam critic Douglas Murray from chairing a discussion tonight at the [London School of Economics].
Modern Islamists will cut a women’s face if she uses make-up and kill women for such ‘crimes’ as being raped, but they are in favour of wild spending and printing (“expansionary fiscal and monetary policies for a counter cycle effect” as the scum of the Economist would put it) – even though such antics are actually denounced by the Koran.
That so many academics sides with the forces of radical Islam should come as no surprise – for the modern left (including modern mutant forms of Marxism that have combined Marxist and Keynesian doctrines in ways that Karl Marx himself would have had nothing but contempt) and radical ‘Islamists’ favour many (although not all) of the same economic policies – as Comrade President Barack Obama would have been reminded by both his leading Marxist (well mutant heretic modern Marxist) and leading Islamist neighbours in the Hyde Park area of Chicago. Although, of course, this is what he had already been taught as a child (both by his Mother and by Frank) and then at Occidental, Columbia and Harvard. Before he was ever sent to Chicago to join the operations of the Comrades there.
“You are off the point Paul – we are talking about academics and free speech”.
Well Pigou (the Cambridge ‘Economics’ Prof who Keynes implies was free market in one of the in-jokes in the ‘General Theory’…) held that anyone who questioned the need for more government spending should be sent to prison.
Collectivist academics have never been pro free speech (it would not be consistent with collectivism if they were in favour of free speech) – the academic that Dr Gabb attacks was following in the tradition of Plato himself.
The function of a university (as explained by Gramsci and Marcuse) is to produce minds indoctrinated with ‘progressive’ thought – so indoctrinated that any ideas that are hostile to the cause will be rejected by them (without consideration), and reject them with great hatred.
Universities are not totally successful – in that most students are just given a vague mind set of support for ‘progressive’ ideas and a built in hostility to ‘reactionary’ ideas, but only in a very loose way, enough to, say, vote for Obama – but not enough to kill for him. They become the sort of people who think the Economist is free market, laugh at the “humour” of the Communist comics on Radio 4 without actually sharing their ideology and do not see anything odd in the selection of books in British bookshops.
“But what has this got to do with radical Islam”.
Sadly quite a lot – as far from being seen as reactionary (with its hatred of women’s rights and so on) radical Islam is seen as progressive. And it is (if one defines progressive in the way the academics would) – Islamic socialism (the word “socialism” is used) is common among both the Sunni and the Shia radicals.
And communist groups (in spite of the atheism of Karl Marx and co) ally with them – look for the banners on the demonstrations (they are there). Students are taught to be anti-American (this will continue in spite of Comrade President Barack Obama) and anti Israeli – and anti capitalist. And radical Islam is all three. Therefore they feel vaguely “pro” it – in spite of its tearing women to bits, and so on, and so on… after all plenty of female radical Islamists can be found – and we must not be “culturally imperialist”.
As for reforming the universities – they can not be reformed. They must be de-funded – no more taxpayers money for them (directly or indirectly).
Oh and if anyone thinks I am judging the ‘educated classes’ too harshly, then spend five minutes in a British book shop (not just the wall of Obama books, but the other books you will find – and the books you will not find) or listening to the news (or film reviews) of private broadcasters such as ‘Classic FM’
They know their market – the people who accepted (or half accepted) the ‘progressive‘ ideas they were taught at school and university, such as a ‘progressive conservative’ leader who attacks ‘big government’ whilst at the same time explicitly promising to… increase the size of the government.
With the raised anxieties over national bankruptcy and the failure of the government to produce a strategy over the medium term for the control of public expenditure and the reduction of the national debt, the potential for a crisis in gilts funding has risen.This comes in the form of a disruptive change, propelled by external financial events, that undermines and destroys the government’s economic strategy. If such a crisis were to take place, it is worth considering the transformative effect upon national politics and the government. The decisions taken by Gordon Brown and the Labour party would form the framework of change and we can surmise that they have already examined possible scenarios at some length.
The most likely tactic employed by Brown is to go long, calling an election in 2010, whilst using the same methods to deny responsibility for the crisis and blaming the necessary cuts in public expensiture upon others. The government is mugged by the markets and forced to conform to the footsteps of Healey in 1976. This is the headless socialists mugged by reality model.
Less likely are radical and unpredictable political changes: Labour forming a national government with the Liberal Democrats and/or the Tories; the government toppling in a welter of incumbent incompetence with an election to follow; or Brown knifed by his own Malvolio and a novitiate attempting to rescue their reputation under a caretaker Prme Minister. Whatever political changes do follow, this will not prevent the years of national humiliation and deleveraging: if they buck the trend and halve the state, the recovery won’t come so late.
The most unlikely and frightening scenario is the one that depends upon Brown’s psychology: that the ‘man with a plan’ is convinced he can steer the country through the national crisis and that transferring power to the Tories would be an act of personal and national treason. If so, Brown could invoke the enabling act, prorogue Parliament and declare a national emergency for the duration of the financial crisis. This is the least likely outcome as the stakes are very high and Brown could not be sure that he would enjoy the support of the Civil Service, the police or the armed forces. The support of his own party is a given, spineless apparatchiks that they would become. On his past record of dithering and reluctance it is a long shot that he would only undertake this action in the most desperate of circumstances, but New Labour’s authoritarian bent and antipathy to democratic accountability are clear.
The moral of the story is that any successor to this Parliament should abolish the Civil Contingencies Act and ensure that temptation is placed out of harm’s way for any other self-righteous prophets who happen to pass through the doors of Number Ten.
Just as Gordon Brown steers the UK full throttle into the ground for the most spectacular economic crash since the 1930’s, far from fighting the culture war in order to set the nation up for an alternative, yet again the utterly absurd David Cameron and his lemming-like party are bending over backwards to show that they represent kleptocratic continuity with the Labour Party.
Demos, a leading thinktank, is today launching a major project to develop “progressive conservative” policies. David Cameron, the Tory leader, will be speaking at the launch of the initiative, which will explore ideas such as how the market can be organised to alleviate poverty and what policies can bolster civic autonomy. Demos, which is independent but which used to be closely associated with New Labour, will have up to four staff working on the project, which will be funded by outside partners, but not the Conservative party.
[…]
As Tory leader Cameron has pledged to pursue “progressive ends”, such as social justice and poverty reduction, through “conservative means”. But this claim has been challenged by Labour and the Liberal Democrats who have questioned his credentials as a true progressive.
How “the market can be organised to alleviate poverty and what policies can bolster civic autonomy”… When politicians ‘organise’ markets, that is always high on political organisation and low on markets. And what policies can “boost civic autonomy”? Dave needs a think-tank to tell him that? Less state policies, taxes and interference generally. Anyone want to make a book on the chance Demos offers that up as a solution? Fat chance.
“But this claim has been challenged by Labour and the Liberal Democrats who have questioned his credentials as a true progressive.” This is like members of a cartel howling about other members competing with them as a way of hiding the fact there is actually no competition going on at all. Labour, the LibDems and the Tories make a fetish of the minor difference between each other to hide the fact there is actually very little between them.
My theory? They have no interest whatsoever in the traditional Conservative voter, whose ovine voting can usually be counted on anyway, but rather plan on gaining power via the strategy of simply waiting for Labour to lose rather than planning to pro-actively win themselves. Therefore they are working up policy statements calculated to appeal to the same Guardian reading looter class seeking more of the same only this time with ‘a sensible safe pair of hands’, to use nauseating Tory-speak.
A vote for the Tory party (I refuse to call them the ‘Conservative’ party) under Cameron is a vote wasted because even if they win, nothing changes. Even if you ‘win’, you lose. They are beyond salvage.
Want to vote? Then vote UKIP. I do not support all their policies but there simply is no meaningful choice any more and at least they have a more or less nationwide political organisation. Is a vote for UKIP a wasted vote? Well at least you will be wasting your vote on a genuine alternative rather than the illusion of change under ‘Dave’ Cameron and his dismal shower of ‘progressives’.
And if enough people do that then it was not a wasted vote after all.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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