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.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Blogger Clive Davis, who is well known to us at Samizdata, has this distressing report about an attack by youths on his teenage son. He’s not been impressed by the response by the police. It will not ease Clive’s anger one jot to hear that I had exactly the same experience when I was mugged in Clapham nine years ago. The police jotted down some comments, took a statement from me, including a description of the attackers (I managed to hit one of the bastards quite hard, I am glad to say). About a week or so later I was contacted by Victim Support, offering counselling, which I politely refused, although I was grateful for at least some followup. I had bad headaches for about a week and had to take several days off work. It is, as Clive and the rest of us Londoners know only too well, a regular occurence.
What to do about it? That is the big question, perhaps one of the biggest questions of public policy in Britain. Sure, the economic worries arguably are taking a greater share of the chattering classes’ time right now, but the long-running issue in Britain, at least since I have been interested in public affairs, is the continued uptrend of yobbery and violence in British society. It has been blamed on many things, with varying levels of plausibility: the lack of authority figures that can inspire and instill respect in youngsters, mostly boys; the breakdown of the family and the rising levels of single-parenthood, which in turn is encouraged by perverse incentives, such as the Welfare State. Throw in a culture that celebrates, or at least does not condemn, yobbery and violence plus the decline of manual labour and lack of outlets for youngsters who are not academically gifted, and you have quite a toxic mix. As for the last point – the decline of manual labour – I certainly do not think that could or should be reversed, given all the gains we have enjoyed from the move to a more service-based economy. But it is a problem that has to be thought about. I personally think one step would be to cut the school-leaving age and hack away labour market restrictions so that apprenticeships can be viable. What so many kids lack is a chance to learn a skill and quickly experience the pride of earning a proper wage. It would be a start.
Time magazine has already caused a stir with this front cover. Good. Sometimes it takes a foreign news publication to tell it like it is about what is happening. Not very “Cool Britannia”, is it?
Anyway, my best wishes to Clive and his family.
London and the Database State
A mayoral hustings organised by NO2ID
Londoners are among the most watched people on earth. As well as housing Whitehall, Parliament and the other self-protecting security apparatus, London has many information and identity management systems of its own. How do candidates feel about the civil liberties and privacy implications of, among other things, the Oyster Card, congestion charging, telephone parking? Would they support or oppose national ID schemes as mayor? What is their attitude to the database state?
Invitations have been issued to every party with London representation at Westminster, in Strasbourg or in the GLA. Gerrard Batten (UKIP), Sian Berry (Green), Lindsay German (Respect/Left List), Boris Johnson (Conservative), and Brian Paddick (LibDem) are currently expected to participate, and written responses from other invitees will be read from the chair.
Chaired by Christina Zaba, journalist and NO2ID’s Union Liason Officer.
Time: 7pm Tuesday 8th April 2008
Place: Friends House, 173 Euston Road NW1 2BJ
Free and open to all.
[I’d like to take this opportunity to remind EU and commonwealth citizens resident in London, they have a vote in this too.]
Has the Prime Minister got lost?
– The Queen during the Windsor Castle banquet for Sarkozy
I suspected this much would happen but perhaps not quite so quickly.
In the post below, I provided a link to ‘Live Leak’, the only internet video site that was willing to host the movie. Apparently, YouTube and Google were approached but their joint and several response was to hastily gather up their skirts and run away screaming like a pair of Victorian maiden aunts.
The owners of Live Leak are clearly made of stronger stuff but they can hardly be blamed for pulling the plug once their lives had been threatened. The film has been removed from their server. Their official statement says:
Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liveleak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers.
[Emphasis mine].
I cannot say that I am entirely surprised by this development but what I do find discomforting is the reference to ‘certain corners of the British media’. Which ‘corners’ are they talking about? I think we ought to know. Does anybody have any details here?
Anyway, it seems that the film is now being spread virally on all manner of mirror sites so, if you are interested, you will still be able to find it, albeit that you may have to dig a little deeper.
Heathrow’s Terminal Five, the one which is fingerprinting passengers even if they take domestic flights, has got off to a glorious start.
The British Airports Authority, now owned by Spain’s Ferrovial, is a joke. In an ideal universe, it would be broken up – as it should never have been privatised as a monopoly in the first place. If the wannabe Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, wants a campaign issue, this is it.
Update: I should of course stress that BA, which operates out of the terminal, bears a heavy lump of the responsibility for this. Its share price is down today by more than 3%. At least BA feels the economic chill of this sort of mess, BAA does not. One commenter points out that hitches often happen at the start of a new venture, but that does really wash since one assumes – right? – that the baggage and check-in facilities at a new airport were beta-tested to make sure they work properly. One would like to think that this is standard procedure in any new operation.
This priceless comment adorns the Financial Times comment pages this morning:
“Public funds are also not always well-directed”
Wow, alert the media!
This remark is contained in a remarkably wrong-headed piece of analysis as to the implications of a recent decision by 3i, the large UK investment firm, to pull out of financing early-stage companies, or what it is generically known as venture capital. Compared to other news events, this might seem like arcane stuff, but in its own way, tells us a lot about the rough environment that entrepreneurs face not just in Britain but in the continent. Venture capitalists typically will back dozens of fledgling businesses, hoping that a minority of them become Google-type successes to compensate for the inevitable failures and just-about-break-evens. VC is very much a long-term game: it can take up to 10 years or more for a portfolio of these investments to bear fruit. The epicentre of VC investing is in northern California; investment outfits like Sequoia Capital have helped to fuel the Silicon Valley startups that are now part of business folklore.
Yet the writer of the FT piece lamely argues that public – taxpayer’s – money be used to encourage such businesses. Groan. It is vain to point out to this person that politicians should have rather more urgent things to do than risk public funds on highly speculative investments. Far better to get to the roots of why 3i and similar outfits have turned their backs on venture capital: a stifling tax and regulatory climate in Britain and elsewhere. If the rewards to success are not taxed at high marginal rates, then the money will flow in eventually, just as it has in the US.
For those who want us all to live in terror, is that would-be terrorists are seldom very competent, and that doing any very big damage is difficult. An illustration just how difficult has just turned up. The Guardian luridly reports:
Terry Jupp, a scientist with the Ministry of Defence, was engulfed in flames during a joint Anglo-American counter-terrorism project intended to discover more about al-Qaida’s bomb-making capacities.
There has been no inquest into his death, as the coroner has been waiting for the MoD to disclose information about the incident. An attempt to prosecute the scientist’s manager for manslaughter ended when prosecutors said they were withdrawing the charge, but said the case was too “sensitive” to explain that decision in open court.
The Guardian has established that Jupp was a member of a small team of British and US scientists making bombs from ingredients of the sort that terrorists could obtain. There is also evidence pointing to experiments to discover more about radiological dispersal devices – so-called dirty bombs – which use conventional explosives to scatter radioactive material.
A properly skeptical report probably would not use the magic word “al-Qaida”, rather than referring to terrorists in general. Nor would there be the superstitious mention of “radioactive material”.
However the salient facts are informative: An expert; no difficulty obtaining the materials and knowing what was wanted; proper care and attention – and he still managed to go horribly wrong. The task is a very difficult one.
Could it be the reason the average would-be terrorist doesn’t blow himself up prematurely (as used to happen quite often to old-style IRA/Fatah, etc., bombers equipped with commercial/military explosives), is because he lacks the knowledge to make an explosion at all? The idea that even a real expert could disperse suitably weaponised chemical/radioactive agents, or biological ones using low-explosive paint-tin bombs is just a bit ludicrous. The idea that an inexperienced religious nutter/power fantasist using recipes off the internet could do so is wholly absurd.
Terrorists in Britain are a threat to life comparable with police car-chases. Terror of terrorists is the threat to civilization.
No chance of the government, media, security services, just suggesting we all calm down, I suppose? Nope.
What is it this week? Ah, tobacco again. Now displaying them for sale is to be banned. It is a public consultation – but the point of public consultation is to be able to point to endorsement of policy and to disarm objectors at the point of actual legislation, not to discover anything. Departmental minds are clearly made up:
Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo said it was “vital” to teach children that “smoking is bad”.
“If that means stripping out vending machines or removing cigarettes from behind the counter, I’m willing to do that,” she said.
‘Its-for-the-children!’ – usually delivered in a sobbing voice on the edge of hysteria – remains an unstoppable weapon by which public life crushes private life.
The BBC states that MPs who oppose the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will be allowed a free vote and will not face sanction as long as the law is passed by Parliament. An act of conscience becomes an exercise in power.
The prime minister is prepared to allow MPs who oppose a controversial embryo bill to vote against pieces of the legislation, the BBC has learned.
A senior government official said the sanction would be permitted only if it did not threaten the passage of the bill to develop human-animal embryos.
The official said Gordon Brown accepts that some members of his government object on grounds of conscience.
This is a compromise that smacks of Brown’s calculation: you may vote as you wish, but you will have to take the possibility of defeat into account. That is when you will face sanctions. Like many other vanished parliamentary conventions, this government will overturn liberal principles in pursuit of advantage.
All MPs whould receive a free vote, even though the Bill is worthy of support. No law needs to be passed: another hoary shibboleth trotted out by Labour. Comparisons with the masochistic contortions that the Liberal Democrats put themselves through under Clegg are clear.
One almost wishes that the bill is defeated so that the ‘moral’ Prime Minister is seen to punish those who acted freely. If any Prime Minister is able to sully an act of conscience, it is Gordon Brown.
The police in the UK have admitted that regardless of whether or not an Members of Parliament broke the law regarding expenses (i.e. helping themselves to our money), they see no point in attempting to prosecute any of them as the laws are so arcane, it is almost impossible to know if any have in fact been broken.
I believe it was a Roman senator (Crassus?) who when asked if he would use his power and privilege to prevent himself being punished for some small transgression, he replied “as we make the laws, it behoves us to obey them if we want other to as well”. Clearly this is not the view prevailing in Westminster.
The following sign is presently visible on the sides of London bus shelters.
So, the economically productive parts of the London economy are being asked to subsidise bus travel for the less economically productive parts, are they? Par for the course, I guess.
Hang, on, what is this at the bottom?
Huh?
Ah…. okay. It seems that due to the deep and touching international friendship in the name of Socialism between Hugo Chavez and Ken Livingstone, Venezuela is providing oil at below market prices so that the welfare recipients of London can have half price bus travel. I do not know how your average man on the street in Caracas feels about this, but personally I am wondering just how fast it is possible to see the back of either of these amoral and wretched men. At least we in London have a mayoral election in May so that we can hopefully get rid of Mr Livingstone. The people of Venezuela are probably less lucky.
Or perhaps we are not so lucky. I guess we will find out. Assuming we do, it may be that the only virtue of democracy is that it gives us the opportunity to throw politicians out when a few years in power has made them too odious for anyone to stand any more. In this case I suspect I shall be sufficiently moved to actually cast a vote.
Al Gore, call your office:
Forecasters are predicting a cold and windy Easter weekend, with snow, gales and heavy downpours in some regions. With snow expected to blanket the north, temperatures will drop as low as -8C in some areas, with particularly treacherous conditions possible over the Scottish mountains.
From the Independent newspaper, ironically one of the most vociferous advocates of the idea that the Earth is doomed from global warming, killer bees or whatever.
Of course, as Dale Amon said the other day, it makes sense to think how free marketeers should address the question of “what if man-made global warming really is a problem?” rather than just poke fun at it, as I am doing here. Dale is right, of course, just in the same way that advocates of civil liberties need to recognise that we face a terrorist threat and not, as one or two libertarians of my acquaintance can do, deny it. Changing ocean currents, caused by movements in the Arctic ice shelf, might, for example, explain why the Gulf Stream is not working its balmy magic on the British climate this time of year. But you can see how perplexing all this must be to people constantly harangued about the need to drastically cut down on carbon usage. The earth does not seem to be getting hotter, at least not around here. It is bloody cold, in fact. But then, my parents and grandparents will point out to me that Easters have often been terrible in the past; they can even remember it snowing in late April.
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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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