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As odd as it may seem today, there was a time when the Conservative opposition was expected to call for cuts in the levels of taxation if only to pressurise the Labour government into not raising taxes too much or too quickly. Occasionally (very occasionally) they even lived up to this expectation.
But that ‘golden era’ is a long way behind us now:
Gordon Brown is expected to raise taxes substantially on larger-engined cars in Wednesday’s Budget.
Some reports suggest that road tax on the least fuel-efficient cars will double to about £400 a year.
Mr. Brown is not to be blamed. After all, it is sheer foolishness to expect a pig to issue anything but a grunt. No, the man to blame is David Cameron. His pernicious eco-tax manifesto has not only incited a pissing contest with the current Chancellor to see who inflict more punishment on those wicked Gaiacidal motorists, it has also (in electoral terms) legitimised this latest round of pure plunder.
The Tories are the enemies of the people so please remember your ABC (Anyone But Cameron).
Tomorrow is national No Smoking Day. Whoopeeeeeeee!!!!
I shall mark the occasion by puffing my way through at least one pack of my favourite Belgian cigarettes (not contributing to the cavernous coffers of HM Treasury makes the experience so much more enjoyable) while blowing great, billowing clouds of grey, acrid, carcinogenic fumes into the air.
I shall consider quitting if and when we ever have a national No Nagging, Preaching, Hectoring, Finger-Wagging, Pecksniffing, Condescending, Nannying Or Sanctimonious Sermonising Just Bugger Off And Mind Your Own Fucking Business Day.
Thanks to my investigative reporting skills, I came across the following draft of the Conservative Party manifesto for the next General Election. It makes for fascinating reading:
“A Tory Party will be a Green government. Global warming, along with terrorism and capitalism, is the greatest threat to our lives. Today’s Tory Party has shed its outmoded addiction to markets, freedom and selfish individualism. Instead, we pledge to shut down industrial civilisation during the course of our first term of office, although we realise that this goal is an ambitious one. Flights will be banned, along with cars, buses, trains, central heating, electric power stations, ports, ferries, factories, foundaries, shipyards, computer stations, everything.
We do of course accept that this policy is a radical one. However, under the funky leadership of David Cameron, a man who has already been prepared for the big challenges of life by his career as an old Etonian and executive for Carlton Communications, we believe our policy of returning to a glorious pre-industrial age is one that is sure to capture the public’s imagination.
Vote Conservative.
Sounds like a real winner to me.
Gordon Brown or David Cameron was alarmed at the possibility of their rival stealing a march in the first media fistfight between both camps. The two politicians needed to punch their green credentials at the public. Cameron’s nonsense on aircraft taxes was launched on Sunday to derision and environmentalist applause. An early headline that can be reversed if the public’s tolerance for more tax withers: a likely outcome under Brown.
How did the Chancellor respond, now that he has appropriated Bambi’s teeth prior to his seat? He promised to phase out old-style lightbulbs and subsidise home insulation:
The Chancellor promised that grants will be available to have every home insulated in the next 10 years.
He also wants to phase out wasteful old-fashioned lightbulbs by 2011 and remove ‘standby’ functions from TVs and DVD players that use electricity when left on.
The prudent Chancellor, ever unwasteful of political manure, was recycling spin from Europe and Australia.
Following measures recently adopted by the Australian government to scrap incandescent light bulbs from Australian homes within three years the Spring Summit on 9 March urged the Commission to “rapidly submit proposals” on:
* Energy savings from office and street lighting “to be adopted by 2008”, and;
* “incandescent lamps and other forms of lighting in private households by 2009”.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern was quoted by Reuters as saying: “We are very impressed by the Australians and before we came to the summit, we had already been in touch with them and looking at the issue.”
The old story of European projects repackaged for domestic consumption, as ignored by your mainstream media. The Chancellor was quite clear that his green policies were designed to set new regulations and taxes within a European framework, extending and affirming our regulatory state in verdant wrapping.
… in the Charity Commission report into how UK charities can be better harnessed to do the state’s work (dressed up as a survey of what they are already doing). It is called Stand and Deliver [pdf].
[Hat tip: Minette Marin in the Sunday Times]
The Conservative Party has long been regarded as having a certain nostalgic, and some would say romantic, yearning for the past. I had no idea that this included a desire to drag us all back to the 19th Century:
Harsh new taxes on air travel, including a strict personal flight “allowance”, will be unveiled by the Conservatives tomorrow as part of a plan that would penalise business travellers, holidaymakers and the tourist industry.
The proposals, to be disclosed by George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, include levying VAT or fuel duty on domestic flights for the first time as part of a radical plan to tackle global warming.
The Conservatives will also suggest – most controversially of all – rationing individuals to as little as a single short-haul flight each year; any further journeys would attract progressively higher taxes, a leaked document entitled Greener Skies suggests.
Even if this is just policy-mongering, the fact that such proposals could even be considered is per se a megaphone-warning about the true nature of the Tories and their future likely conduct.
The mobility that has been afforded to people on relatively low incomes by cheap international air travel is one of the most productive and liberating benefits of this age. By declaring war on this, Cameron and his lickspittles show themselves to be not just opportunist but also disreputable and loathsome (as is anyone who either supports them or votes for them).
As for me, I will be unaffacted. I do not intend to hang around long enough to witness the huddled masses setting sail from Southampton to seek a better life in the free world. If (God forbid) Cameron does win power in the next election, I shall utilise my air travel ‘ration’ to purchase a one-way ticket out.
A Conservative front bench spokesman has been sacked for racially insensitive remarks, leading one former Conservative cabinet minister (Michael Portillo) to note that while people complain about the professionalisation of politics, this is what happens when you bring in people with life-experience outside politics: they do things no professional would.
A true professional can get away with more than dodgy anecdote. He can make a direct appeal to public xenophobia, and hang a major strand of government policy on it. And do it in such a way that no-one calls him out on it:
It is unfair that foreigners come to this country illegitimately and steal our benefits, steal our services like the NHS and undermine the minimum wage by working.
Of course he is a socialist, so he could not be a racist, could he? But make no mistake about it, this is a dog-whistle to the political base of the Labour Party among the white working class.
It is not the legality of immigrants that makes their competition unwelcome. It is the fact of competition. Those who compete most effectively are legal migrants from the Commonwealth or Eastern Europe who have rights to the services as well as work ethic and education. Resentment does not check your papers: ‘illegal immigration’ is code for ‘immigrants’ tout court. Note John Reid’s language: “foreigners”.
So when your landlord checks your ID and registers where you live for the authorities, in fear of a £20,000 fine; when Kylie and Madonna, Rupert Murdoch’s children, Sheikh Maktoum, Shilpa Shetty and all have to be fingerprinted for their ID cards* to make sure they are not “stealing our services” as well as adding to the colour of our national life; when you have to prove your residential status to see a doctor, who probably has to have an ID Card marked “Foreigner” if he is one of the tens of thousands of overseas doctors working in Britain (and threatening the minimum wage); when you.have to prove your own identity constantly for the official record even in private transactions and it would be so much easier to ‘volunteer’ to join the National Identity Register… then remember it is all the fault of filthy foreigners coming here, not in the least the exploitation of popular racist sentiment for political advantage. The Home Office has to watch you, just in case you might be a foreigner.
* Or not, since I can not see them hanging around to put up with it. All the world’s interesting people, who live here for the combination of privacy and open society, might well go elsewhere.
Regulars will know that this blog does not have a lot of time for political correctness. They will also know, however, that this blog does not also have a lot of time for racist bigots – or “race realists” as these creeps call themselves these days – either. As Ayn Rand once remarked, racism is the oldest form of collectivism. And like all forms of collectivism, it ignores the unique differences between individuals.
With that in mind, the resignation of this idiot was inevitable and wholly justified. I read the Telegraph comments and see that a lot of people defended the views of the Tory MP who said what he said. It makes me realise that I have as little sympathy for parts of the “right” as I do for a lot of the “left” as well. Non-white soldiers have put their lives on the line in the service of their comrades and their regiments. This MP would do well to remember that point.
The House of Lords of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland was formed (informally by Simon de Montfort, although some would trace it all the way back to the Anglo Saxon Witan, and formally by Edward the first) of the great landed families and the bishops – first just of England, then of Wales, then of Scotland and finally of Ireland (now just Northern Ireland).
The dominant opinion today holds that it is wrong for a House of Parliament to be made up of the aristocracy plus a few Bishops. So first the powers of the House of Lords (or House of Peers as it is more formally known) had its powers greatly reduced by the Acts of 1911 and 1949, then in the 1960’s an unwritten convention came into existence that no new hereditary peerages would be created, only life peerages. Perhaps this was on the Thomas Paine grounds that “hereditary legislators are as absurd as hereditary mathematicians”. Although Mr Paine never explained what was so good about elected mathematicians or what upholding the traditional principles of law had to do with mathematics anyway.
The government headed by Mr Blair has got rid of almost all hereditary peers, thus leaving the Bishops, in modern times joined by the Chief Rabbi and so on although by appointment, not by right, and the ‘life peers’, the people appointed by recent Prime Minister – mostly by Mr Blair himself. It is felt by most members of the House of Commons and by many outside it that only elected people should be part of Parliament and they are pressing for a fully elected House of Lords.
This would at least have the virtue of there not being ‘second class’ members of the House – as would be the case if some members of the House of Lords were elected and some were not. However, it does miss an important point. If the House of Lords is not going to be a House of Lords, why have one at all? Why not just have the House of Commons? After all many respectable nations (Norway, New Zealand and so on) have a ‘unicameral legislature’.
The United Kingdom (for all the existence of the Welsh and Ulster Assemblies and the ‘Parliament’ in Scotland) is not a federal country. So how is this second elected chamber to be elected?
If it is elected in much the same way as the House of Commons it is just a waste of money as it will mirror this House, and if it is elected in some way to counter the House of Commons there will be conflict between the Houses (not in, say, the sense that there is sometimes ‘conflict’ between the United States House of Representatives and the Senate, but real conflict). In the past a government with a ‘radical agenda’ could always say “we are elected and you are not, so you may delay us – but in the end you must give in on the fundamental points of our platform”, this was as true for Mrs Thatcher as it was for prior radical Liberal and Labour party governments.
But, with an elected ‘House of Lords’ or whatever it is to be called, they could turn round and say “we are elected as well and you are not getting out of the EU” (or whatever the measure was).
Lastly my fear is that an elected second chamber would be elected using proportional representation, thus meaning an alliance of leftist parties would hold a majority for ever, and would be elected on a regional basis – part of the old plan to divide the United Kingdom (really divide England ) into €uro regions under the control of the European Union.
This story catches the eye:
The UK’s Jedi community today expressed concerns that government plans to ban Samurai swords could hinder their freedom to wield lightsabres in public.
The UK’s Home Office today issued a consultation paper ahead of legislation intended to ban Samurai blades by the end of the year. In a bid to “protect the public”, replica Samurai swords will become illegal to import, sell and hire in Britain.
The quote marks around “protect the public” are deserved. Quite how such a ban will “protect” anyone is a mystery. The ban on handguns has not led to a dramatic fall in gun-crime, as the recent spate of shootings in London demonstrate all too plainly. If swords are banned to prevent crimes, why not go the whole hog and ban kitchen knives?
Come to that, why not take up the idea of banning opposable thumbs? Human beings – we are not a feature, but a bug!
I never begin to be amazed by David Cameron. Surely this man is the most visionary and inspirational rhetorical and philosophical figure of our age:
David Cameron will pledge tomorrow to work with like-minded politicians to create a new European Union..
Wow! We have never heard that before. Radical or what?
The speech will be a clear signal that Mr Cameron will not take his party out of Europe and also a message to supporters who are considering deserting to UKIP that he will try to change the EU.
And I, for one, absolutely believe him. This Cameron fellow is like a breath of fresh air and good old-fashioned, down-to-earth common sense. Well, not quite down-to-earth perhaps.
“A visitor from Mars, witnessing the signing of the declaration, would take a close look of the inner workings of the EU and…”
Blast the whole thing to smithereens with a giant death-ray?
“…observe earnest discussions about reviving constitutions, transfers of competence, relative voting weights and other distractions.”
Ah, yes. Those Martians are so nuanced and sophisticated.
“But the intelligent Martian would say the EU should be focusing on the economic challenges of globalisation and the urgent need to reform European economies so that it could maintain its prosperity. It should also concentrate on the challenge of climate change and the need for swift action at all levels to slow the rate of global warming. And it should be absorbed by the moral and security challenge of global poverty.”
He is definitely onto something here. After all, the policy-making imperatives of the European Union are the hot topic of conversation on the Martian dinner-party circuit.
David Cameron – a Carefully Understated Natural Tory.
Last Sunday I came across a gem of a job advertisement for HM Customs and Revenue and we discovered that as taxpayers, we are in fact “customers”, and the job of directing this happy enterprise went with a six-figure salary and no doubt, a final-salary pension. Ever since I have been tracking job ads in the public sector, and this weekend, I have another little cracker for you via the Sunday Times:
“A new era for adult social care services.”
A new era. Hold on to your wallets folks.
Director of adult services.
What, is this a porn company?
Up to 110,000 pounds.
Yowza!
Newcastle, recently designated a “science city” by the government, is a great city which in recent years has been transformed into one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the country”.
True. No longer famed for shipbuilding, Newcastle has been through a terrible economic time, but it has some top-class firms, like Sage, the accounting software business. The beer is good and cheap, and the local boys and girls amaze by their ability to go out on a wintry Friday night wearing hardly any clothes. Oh, and it has Newcastle FC, which last won a trophy back in the early Jurassic period.
Our population is ageing and changing – we need to plan for this now. It is critical that organisations across the city work together to better plan for and provide for these changing needs.
No. What the state needs to do is to withdraw from many activities and let people increasingly take control of their own lives and save up money to deal with rising longevity. This process was made rather harder by the present Labour government’s endless fiddling with the tax system, and most of all, its 5 billion-pound-a-year tax raid on corporate pension funds.
In other words, the job spec. here is for some head honcho to “co-ordinate” various efforts to confront the “problems” of a greying population. It seems to me that all this co-ordination will do will cost a lot of money for jobs like this one. People are living for longer – which is hardly a problem from many points of view. As people live longer and healthier lives, then job patterns would, in a free and unfettered market, adjust to deal with that.
£110,000 (US $214,000) is a very nice payout for a lot of bureaucratic hot air. If one multiplies such jobs, you can see why the increase in public sector jobs of more than 800,000 since 1997 has had no noticeable impact on the quality of public services in this country, and arguably, made them far worse.
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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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