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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Via the glorious Devil’s Kitchen blog – it’s not for the squeamish or easily offended – I cam across this collection of comments made in the weekend press by various supposedly eminent people on how they would improve Britain. Some are quite good. But our Devil reserves his sulphur for Rory Bremner, an impressionist whom I used to rather like (his impersonation of Tony Blair is brilliant), but who has become boring. Bremner’s pet idea is to force teenagers to serve in “community projects”, a sort of civilian version of an army. Whenever the issue of youth delinquency comes up, as it has recently due to the problems of youth crime in our major cities, you can always count on parts of the right and left to join ideological hands over the idea of making youth “serve” their nation in some way. The objections to this are, however, considerable:
Young people are not the property of the state. This may come as a shocking revelation to anyone straying on to this blog for the first time in their lives, but there it is. You own your own life, and no-one else. The idea that after having been forced, on pain of legal penalty, to endure education until the age of 18, that one should continue to be forced to devote X hours of your time to “serving” the nation in some ill-defined way is monstrous. The issue is about inculcating the virtue of self-responsibility; state-run schemes are not exactly famed for doing that.
It is unlikely to provide a solution to things like crime. It might encourage some kids to become mildly less unruly than before, but the substance of the problem is that far too many youngsters are borne to single-parent families with no male role models. (Yes I am aware of the many children in these circumstances that turn out fine, but the general trend cannot be denied). I am not sure that coercing people into some form of state-run scheme is really going to reverse any problems, although I suppose some people might enjoy it, like the bureaucrats who will be employed to run whatever schemes get thought up.
It says something about the quality of TV “satire” that an advocate of collectively forcing the “nation’s youth” into some form of national service scheme can be voiced by a man who no doubt thinks he is a radical lefty. But then it is not really so strange at all, when you think about it.
William Hague is on the money and bloody hilarious…
Anyone in Britain who wishes to file a tax return to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs must do so online. Oh goody:
The security of the online computer system used by more than three million people to file tax returns is in doubt after HM Revenue and Customs admitted it was not secure enough to be used by MPs, celebrities and the Royal Family.
Thousands of “high profile” people have been secretly barred from using the online tax return system amid concerns that their confidential details would be put at risk.
Of course, as the Daily Telegraph rightly points out, the HMRC is the department that managed to lose details of 25m people back in the autumn; it may be a rash prediction to make, but the more this sort of nonsense piles up, the less likely it is that the ID card will go ahead as planned. We can all live in hope, anyway.
It has been a mad-cap few days; the FTSE 100 index of shares oscillated by 9% today, an incredibly volatile day and although it ended higher after the Fed tried to kick-start the US economy with a sharp rate cut, we are not out of the woods yet. Although Britain may not have some of the problems of the USA, we have the disaster of Northern Rock. It looks as if the British government has decided that it is so desperate to avoid being tarnished as a government that nationalised a failed bank that it will, instead, create an elaborate set of government guarantees to enable a consortium of investors, led by Richard Branson, to run Northern Rock and over a period of time and with luck, repay the loans. It is a no-win situation for the taxpayer, of course, who bears the risk of this venture. It also adds to moral hazard and undermines the necessary fear of going bust that should, in a healthy economy, act to deter unwise lending practices (that is harsh, I know, but consider the long-term problems of not letting this happen).
Anatole Kaletsky is far too much of an economic intervenionist for my liking, but his article today is pretty good. His comments on Brown are damning.
Some time ago I made vaguely praiseworthy comments about Richard Branson, in the context of the airline industry. Well, we are all entitled to revise our opinions; I am not really sure I like what the Bearded One is up to, or his rather undedifying association with a deal involving huge amounts of public funds.
Update: Tim Worstall has some further thoughts.
If you are not watching it right now… ‘Dispatches’ is ripping Ken Livingston a new one as we speak…
Would sharia law be preferable to the regime that our current ruling class has in store for us?
I have just chanced upon a copy of the Review section of the Observer of a week ago. In it there is a double page spread, entitled Is this the best way to run the arts?, which is about how various performing enterprises have now got grants they used not to have or who have had their grants increased, and how various other performing enterprises have had their grants cut or abolished.
As is the way in politics, the ones who are suffering are the ones now making the most noise. They blame horrid men in suits who do not understand art. Politicians in other words.
This almighty row has been brewing since just before Christmas when the Arts Council announced the most radical funding shake-up in its history: 194 organisations and individuals would have their grants substantially cut or completely withdrawn. While some cuts may be sensible, others seemed barely thought through, such as the proposal that the Northcott theatre in Exeter lose its entire grant (£547,000) from 2009. Clarie Middleton, acting chief executive, heard the news the day before reopening the theatre after a major refurbishment – funded in part by an Arts Council grant. ‘It’s like planting a bulb but as soon as a shoot appears, you cut it off,’ she said.
Other victims include new writing powerhouse the Bush (a 40 per cent cut), the London Sinfonia chamber orchestra (100 per cent) and Sheffield’s Compass Theatre Company (100 per cent), which had ‘absolutely no idea the company was in a precarious position with Arts Council Yorkshire’ and has since had to cancel a scheduled tour.
But if you want money from politicians, you ought not to be surprised when those same politicians take an interest in the money they are giving to you. After all, they were the ones who stole it, and they have to justify this thievery and to ensure that its proceeds are distributed in a way that satisfies their supporters and quiets their critics. True, the men in suits probably do not understand art very well. But these artists could do with a crash course in politics. They are getting it.
Politicians, especially the ones making the running now, like inflicting a radical shake-up every so often. To feed their friends, they are willing to make enemies, and their “cuts” (i.e. decisions to stop giving you money) are often hastily decided rather than “thought through”. And if they do decide to slash or abolish your grant, why would they warn you about this? As for those among them who are genuinely trying to shun mediocrity and to fund only “excellence” etc., how are they supposed to know what that is, or worse, is going to be next year or the year after? Arts funding is either politics, or a lottery.
The bottom line here is: if you place yourself at the mercy of politicians, they are all too liable to behave just like the politicians they are and show you no mercy at all. The way to avoid being at the mercy of these horrid men in suits is not to depend upon them for any of your income. Oh, it takes far longer to build up an arts enterprise which relies on voluntary support from eccentric or socially aspirational donors, and from customers who are actually willing to pay in sufficient numbers for your efforts. But once you have done this, you are far less vulnerable to politics, and you will have to waste far less of your life doing politics. True, the politicians might still shut you down or rob you blind, blinder than usual I mean. We must all live in the shadow of such threats. But at least, if you are not getting a government grant, closing you down ceases to be a routine decision that the men in suits are liable to make at any moment.
Some while ago now, I wrote this and this (also available as an .htm) on the above subject. Both still stand up pretty well, I think.
The British Government does not seem to be able to keep anything secret.
Still, this is ‘only’ 600,000 people affected, which is quite modest, when you compare it to other recent fiascos.
Good piece by Jeff Randall today on what the rapid rise of gold implies. Gold at $1,000 an ounce looks eminently plausible. Mind you, there is a fair bit of speculative froth here. I like the fact that Jeff, who must have felt very out of place during his time as a journalist for the BBC, approvingly quotes F.A. Hayek’s views on banking and gold.
Let’s not forget that Gordon Brown, you know, that clever chap from the University of Edinburgh, once a centre of the Scottish Englightenment, flogged Britain’s official gold reserves for a mere $275 an ounce. Vote Labour!
Interesting story at Bloomberg saying that despite the blandishments of President Sarkozy, who is currently diverting the celebrity pages of the press with his amorous adventures, Frenchmen and women living in Britain do not want to return home to a land still hobbled by taxes and regulations.
They certainly cannot be staying in Britain for its weather.
To this piece by Frank Fisher:
When asked to name countries that impose extensive internet censorship, you might think of China, Iran, or North Korea; I doubt you’d think of the UK, but, after the home secretary Jacqui Smith’s speech to the International Centre for Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence today, you really should.
Britain is not a free country. It is free-er than most perhaps, but at most free-ish; and moving steadily towards a free-esque pantomime freedom.
For the inevitable commentators who think I’m whinging about nothing because I’m able to write these lines, consider this: Britain also has an historically low murder rate. Yet generally homicide is still deplored, and we would like less of it. No politician would dare stand up and call for more gang-violence because ‘known criminals’ being murdered is a good thing.
Statistics of the sort unearthed by Matthew Elliott here are of the kind that any ambitious Tory MP, anxious to hammer the government, should memorise by heart.
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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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