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The threats to liberty in Britain are too numerous to keep track of. Thanks to Josie Appleton on Spiked! for this, which I had entirely missed before now:
The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill, due to return to the House of Commons next week, will mean that 9.5million adults – one third of the adult working population – will be subject to ongoing criminal checks.
It is a House of Lords Bill, but has Government backing.
The Bill would create an Independent Barring Board (IBB), which would maintain “barred lists” preventing listed individuals from engaging in “regulated activities”. “In respect of an individual who is included in a barred list, IBB must keep other information of such description as is prescribed.” [cl.2(5)]
As the Bill was originally presented, you would have no right to damages if you were mistakenly or maliciously included in a barred list, and nor would anyone else. And the IBB would have been an absolute finder of fact, with appeal allowed only on a point of law. So among the things the IBB would have been independent of is responsibility for its actions.
Now things are slightly better, but there’s a cunning pseudo-compromise. You can sue. And you can now appeal the facts. But the criteria applied in the application of policy to an individual case – the core of what the IBB would do – is expressly (with a shade of Guantanamo) deemed not to be a matter of law or fact, and are therefore not to be subject to examination by the courts [cl.4(3)].
The schedule of “regulated activity” is 5 pages long in the printed copy. So you’ll have to look it up yourselves if you are interested.
The practical effect? Well, as an example, as I understand it, if the Bill were currently law, I would be committing a criminal offence in paying someone I trust to look after my elderly mother, who is currently convalescing from an operation, without both of us being made subject to official monitoring first.
Once it is in force, if you wish to be self sufficient – even if you don’t value your privacy, and are confident that theree’s nothing about you to which an official could possibly have objected in the past, and that you might not be confused with anyone else – you’ll need to know if a family member is going to be ill in sufficient time to fill in all the forms and wait for them to be processed. Better leave it to the state – which is of course always perfect.
From The Guardian yesterday:
The Department for Education has drawn up a series of proposals which are to be sent to universities and other centres of higher education before the end of the year. The 18-page document acknowledges that universities will be anxious about passing information to special branch, for fear it amounts to “collaborating with the ‘secret police'”. It says there will be “concerns about police targeting certain sections of the student population (eg Muslims)”.
There are two things I find fascinating about this. Not that it explicitly suggests staff may want to report students to the authorities for “using a computer while Asian” – something which if followed would bankrupt every scientific, economic and medical faculty in the country, from the postage and staff time used in denouncements – but the institutional presumptions involved, and the political context. → Continue reading: Love report thy neighbour
You can guess the context.
10 October 2006
Dear Sir or Madam,
YOUR ADVERTISING
We investigate complaints to ensure that non-broadcast marketing communications comply with the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (the CAP Code), prepared by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP). We also investigate complaints to ensure that television and radio advertising complies with the CAP (broadcast) Codes.
We have received the attached complaint about your national press ad (copy enclosed) and we welcome your help to resolve it. If the copy is incomplete, please send us a complete version. If the copy is difficult to read, please send us a better copy.
Please also check your company name and address details at the top of the complaint notification. If they are incorrect, please let us know.
We shall consider the complaint in particular under Clause 5.1 of the Code (copy enclosed). You should be aware that marketing communications must comply with all other relevant clauses, among which are the attached underlying principles. A copy of the 11th edition of the Code may be obtained from the CAP website, www.cap.org.uk or the ASA website, www.asa.org.uk.
The Code requires marketers to hold documentary evidence for their claims before submitting an ad for publication. Please give us all the substantiation and information you would like us to have. Although it is for you to decide what to submit, you will need to comment on the complainants’ specific objection as outlined in the attached complaint notification. We shall be happy to receive anything else you think is relevant.
Please let us know whether the material to which this complaint relates was prepared/handled by you or by another company on your behalf and, if so, which company. If you have used an agency, please tell us its name. Please let us know what plans you have for future use of your ad. Can you provide us with a media schedule?
If the ASA Council upholds the complaints, its ruling might affect the acceptability of the same or similar claims/advertisements appearing in other media, including broadcast. We are telling you this now so you are aware of the potential ramifications of this investigation. Please let us know whether the same or similar claims are made or are to be made in advertisements in other media, including broadcast.
Our Complaints Procedure leaflet is enclosed.
The ASA’s effectiveness depends on resolving complaints fairly and swiftly. An unreasonable delay in responding to our enquiries may be considered a breach of the Code. So that we can conclude this matter as soon as possible, please respond in writing, preferably by e-mail to […..], within five working days. If you need more time please let us know. If you are not the right person to deal with this letter please tell us and pass the letter on to someone who is. If we do not receive a reply within five working days from the date of this letter, we shall submit to the ASA Council a draft recommendation upholding the complaint. [My emphasis]
Thank you for your co-operation. We look forward to hearing from you by 17 October.
Yours sincerely
[…………]
Investigations Executive
cc: [Newspaper]
bcc: NPA [=Newspaper Publishers Association]
Yes; they did disclose the “bcc”. The accompanying leaflet sets out the complaints procedure. It ends, inevitably, on a minatory note:
Most advertising parties act quickly to amend or withdraw their ad if we find it breaks the codes. The ASA acts against the few who do not. Broadcasters’ licenses require them to stop transmitting ads that break the codes and we can ask publishers not to print ads that dont meet the rukes. Other sanctions exist to prevent direct mail that breaches the code from being distributed and to reduce the likelihood of posters appearing that breach the codes on taste and decency and social responsibility grounds.
Ultimately, we can refer non-broadcast advertisers who persistently break the CAP Code to the Office of Fair Trading for legal action under the Control of Misleading Advertisement Regulations. Broadcasters who continually air ads that break the codes can be referred to Ofcom, which has the power to fine them or even revoke their licence.
An almost-hidden jewel in London’s collection of museums is the Gilbert collection of jewels, furniture and historic art in Somerset House, on the banks of the Thames near the Temple tube station. At the moment, there is a retrospective exhibition of the work of the great Tiffany jewellery business, going back to that firm’s origins in the middle of the 19th Century. In some ways, the rise of the house of Tiffany mirrors America’s own rise as a mighty economy, since the industrial progress of that country created vast fortunes, and naturally, people wanted to show this wealth off. And boy, did they do so. I strongly recommend this collection for anyone who wants to see the jewellers’ art at its greatest.
My only word of caution: if you are thinking of taking someone there for the start of a sophisticated date, be warned. The jewels there may give your other half Big Ideas. Very Expensive Ones. Gulp.
India Knight has written an article in the Sunday Times about the realities of life for Muslims and decrying ‘Islamophobic’ views like Jack Straw’s dislike of the Islamic veil. Many of the points she makes are fair ones but I think the underlying premise of her article is completely mistaken.
I am particularly irked by ancient old ‘feminists’ wheeling out themselves and their 30-years-out-of-date opinions to reiterate the old chestnut that Islam, by its nature, oppresses women (unlike the Bible, eh,?) and that the veil compounds the blanket oppression […] That perhaps there exist large sections of our democratic society, veiled or otherwise, who have every right to their modesty, just as their detractors have every right to wear push-up bras?
Fine, but Muslim women wearing veils is hardly something new: they have been a common spectacle on British streets for a good twenty years, so something has changed. The reason why people who were previously tolerant of the more outwardly outlandish Islamic ways was that there was no sense that Muslims were trying to impose their sensibilities on others outside their narrow community of religious believers.
I am not saying there are widespread calls amongst Muslims in Britain to force all women to wear veils, but if Jon Snow (who is certainly no Islamophobic reactionary) is to be believed, there is indeed widespread Muslim intolerance for any exercise of free speech which they find offensive… and by intolerance I do not mean dislike or disrespect (respect is never a right) but rather support for the use of force (legal or extra-legal) to prevent people ‘insulting’ Islam.
Tolerance is a right, but it is one entirely contingent upon it being reciprocated, because tolerating intolerance makes no sense whatsoever. Simply put, because so many Muslims refuse to tolerate non-Muslim criticism of their ways, that inevitably means that fewer and fewer secular (or Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Confucian, Buddhist) people in the UK are willing to tolerate adherents of a set of beliefs in which intolerance of others appears to be endemic.
As I have said before, I have little time for any religion but if people want to live in ghettos with their co-fantasists so that their weird values are the local community norms, I regard that as a problem, but a manageable and tolerable one. It is when they want to extend their influence over others by force that I stop tolerating them. So even if what India Knight says about the realities of life for most Islamic women is true… so what? The nature of life for people who choose to be Muslims is not the root of antipathy to Islam by non-Muslims. Islam is not a race, it is a set of beliefs and therefore it is a choice. As it is something people choose to believe in, it is therefore something upon which they can and should be rightly judged by others. When someone wears the outward trappings of a set of beliefs (such as a hijab, a KKK outfit, a crucifix, a Hammer and Sickle, a Nazi armband, an Ayn Rand tee-shirt), it seems strange they should not expect to be judged on the basis of what those beliefs mean to others.
I dislike the Islamic veil for much the same reason I dislike people who wear pictures of a Hammer and Sickle upon their shirts, not because of what they are (they are just bits of coloured cloth after all) but because they represent a set of beliefs which are incompatible with post-Enlightenment civilization itself and also indicate the wearer will probably not be willing to tolerate me expressing what I think of them if they are true to their beliefs, regardless of how politely I phrase my remarks. That is what I find intolerable.
One of the key rights that makes civil society possible is the right to free association: the right to deal with people who want to deal with and the right to dis-associate yourselves from those who (for whatever reason) you disapprove of without threat of force being used against you.
As a result it should be no surprise that in the ongoing struggle to replace the interactions of civil society with entirely political mediated interactions, that the right to free association is under attack yet again. The right to decide who you must to do business with is being fought for by Catholic and Muslim institutions who do not want to be forced by law to deal with people who are homosexuals (i.e. people acting sinfully according to their beliefs).
Yet no one is even discussing the fact that individuals, such as shop owners or landlords for example, might also want the right to free association Why is this right being discussed only in terms of ‘group rights’? The right of Catholic or Muslim institutions not to have people forced on them by law? What about the rights on everyone else to make their own minds up who they will or will not associate with and do business with?
I do not think that George Walden, former Conservative MP and minister, cares much for David Cameron, according to this article that came out a few weeks ago. Excerpt:
The politics of sentiment increasingly dominate public discussion, and sentimentality tinged with cynicism was what Diana was about. The same is true of Cameron’s social politics. The cant of the new elites emerges with numbing shamelessness in his public declarations. Recently the one-time PR man for ruthlessly profitable trash TV made a heartfelt speech in which he said that money wasn’t everything, and that the quality of our culture mattered. In his more mawkish mode it is possible to discern in the Tory leader’s political pitch a faint echo of Diana’s Christ-like affectations. With her, it was a scrupulously choreographed contact with people sick with Aids. With Cameron, it is an ostentatious tolerance of the lower orders: suffer the hoodies and the hoodlums to come unto me.
Brrr… Walden might as well have called Cameron a patronising wanker. He must be glad the practice of duelling has been abolished.
Iain Dale, usually the most civil of commentators, is not impressed much by Walden, however:
Former Tory MP George Walden was one of Britain’s worst ever High Education Ministers. Since leaving Parliament he has earned a living writing pseudo-intellectual drivel about politics and culture. It’s usually unreadable. I attended a discussion evening with him and his wife a couple of years ago, organised by Living Marxism. He was insufferable and spent the whole evening putting down his wife. In the Independent on Sunday diary there is a piece on his book The New Elites in which he slags off David Cameron for “being a posh man pretending to be common”. Utter rubbish. But even if it were true, it’s better than a pub bore pretending to be an intellectual.
Aren’t Conservatives lovely?
Terrorism has always been cheap and easy, to be sure. The reason we do not have more has more to do with the tiny numbers of people it appeals to, and the sort of people it appeals to not generally being much good at practical organisation, than the competence of security forces. But modern governments and modern media appear to make terrorising the general population costless, workless and safe. Just hold a few meetings, send a few emails, and confess to plotting some extravagant crimes, and you are guaranteed to occupy the media for days.
Dhiren Barot, of north London, planned to use a radioactive “dirty bomb” in one of a series of attacks in the UK, Woolwich Crown Court heard.
Leave aside that ‘dirty bombs’ are not significantly more dangerous than ordinary bombs, but rely on superstitions about radioactive contamination – read further down the story:
The Crown could not dispute claims from the defence that no funding had been received for the projects, nor any vehicles or bomb-making materials acquired, [prosecuting counsel] said.
Barot had also faced 12 other charges: one of conspiracy to commit public nuisance, seven of making a record of information for terrorist purposes and four of possessing a record of information for terrorist purposes.
The judge ordered all these charges to lie on file following his guilty plea to conspiracy to murder.
The obesity crisis, epidemic, or whatever (is fatness contagious?) continues to keep the chattering classes busy. In the Daily Telegraph today, Andrew O’Hagan, of whom I was blissfully unaware until about a month ago when he sprung to the defence of Mel Gibson after he made his anti-Jewish rant, argues for stuff like taxing “junk food” and encouraging a whole cultural battle to get the moronic lower orders off their dietary habits. It is an article reeking of disdain for vast swathes of the UK population. Perhaps it is deserved. Many Britons are disgusting people, I suppose, but being the wild-eyed libertarian that I am, do not consider it my business to nag them into eating better by a mixture of state exhortation, punitive taxes and compulsory five-mile runs.
I am not entirely sure what to make of Mr O’Hagan, or indeed the decision of the right-leaning Telegraph to hire him. I thought his article on Gibson was a terrible piece, both patronising towards Jews, other groups, and offensive but perhaps a one-off lapse, one which might not be repeated. But pretty much everything he has written since seems to be entirely lacking in humour, grace or wit. I fear that paper is in one of its down-cycles. O’Hagan may perhaps fit in nicely into the modern Conservative Party.
For a related article on obesity, diet and the nanny state, read this by Jacob Sullum.
But not the usual suspects it appears. I just came across this story more less by accident.
David Bolais Jackson, 62, of Trent Road, Nelson, was arrested on Friday in the Lancaster area after leaving his Grange practice for the last time. Jackson was charged with being in possession of an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose. However, it is unclear who or what the intended target might have been.
Police found rocket launchers, chemicals, British National Party literature and a nuclear or biological suit at his home. The find came shortly after they had recovered 22 chemical components from the house of his alleged accomplice, Robert Cottage, a former BNP election candidate, who lives in Colne. The haul is thought to be the largest ever found at a house in this country.
Some BNP members stockpile the largest ever haul of explosives found at a house in the UK and this does not make the front page of the national media? Did I just somehow miss the articles about this in the Telegraph, Guardian and Times?
For what a political party is supposed to be, one should turn to Edmund Burke (the man who is often cited as the founder of modern Conservatism), who produced the classic defence of political party – defending it from the charge that is was simply a ‘faction’, a despised term in the 18th century and before, of people out for power.
Edmund Burke argued that a political party, as opposed to a faction, was a group of people allied around a set of principles – i.e. they were interested in how government acted, not just in who got power.
Burke’s argument was made more credible by the fact that the leader of his own party (the Rockingham Whigs) was the second Marquis of Rockingham.
Rockingham was well known to be uninterested in the financial benefits of political power or influence, his being one of the richest men in the land may have aided him in his disinterest, as may have the fact that his wealth came from his unsubsidized landed estates, and the Marquis was well known to be uninterested in power for its own sake (he would much rather give up office and return to running his estates or just watching horse racing, than commit any dishonourable act).
Rockingham was no weakling or fool (contrary to what is sometimes said, I hold him to have come to his principles before he met Burke rather than Burke having imposed principles upon him – they shared principles, neither imposed principles on the other), but it was clear that whatever led this man to politics (indeed to be the leader of a party and twice Prime Minister) it was neither financial advantage or lust for office or power.
Nor was it some vague ‘desire to serve’. Rockingham was loyal to the King – but he would not take office other than on his own principles. The Rockingham Whigs held that the power of the King should be limited, but they (or rather Rockingham and Burke and some others) held that government itself, whether from the King or Parliament, should be limited. That there should not be wars for trading advantage (as the older Pitt was alleged to have supported) and that taxes, government spending and regulations should be kept as limited as possible, and there should be no special projects for interests in the land whether those interests were rich or poor.
Rockingham was not good at writing or clever talk, indeed he had the strange English vice of never wishing to seem more intelligent than anyone he was talking to, and not pointing out an error in what someone was saying if he thought that doing so would undermine them or make them sad, but Burke was a good talking and writing and took up the task of explaining the principles of the Rockingham Whigs.
Sadly Burke was mistaken in thinking that all the Rockingham Whigs shared the same principles and this was to be seen after Rockingham died in 1782.
It is often said that the party broke up over the French Revolution. With most of the party following Charles James Fox, but some (such as the Duke of Portland and Earl Fitzwilliam, eventually coming to side with Burke on the Revolution), however the strain was clear years before the French Revolution.
Pitt the Younger proposed free trade (more or less) between Britain and Ireland whilst the Rockingham Whigs (led by Fox) opposed his bill. BUT Burke, and those who thought like him, opposed it on the grounds that it included a tax on Ireland, whereas Fox opposed it on the grounds that he did not wish to allow Irish goods free access into Britain.
More broadly, Burke (and those who thought like him) defined freedom as limited government (freedom from government), whereas Fox (and his followers) defined freedom as the rule of Parliament (a rule in the interests of ‘the people’ of course)… freedom as a ‘free government’.
Whilst the goal was to limit the power of the King, or rather of ‘the Crown’ as it was the interests around the throne, not George III himself that were the threat, there was common ground – but over time the basic difference in principles made itself felt. The French Revolution (in Burke’s eyes unlimited state power, in Fox’s eyes a new people’s government freeing itself from the King and ruling in the general interest) was just the great issue that made the clash of principles obvious.
So what is this all got to do with the modern British ‘Conservative’ party? → Continue reading: Why the British ‘Conservative’ party is not a political party at all
Just so you all know, and in case even Guy Herbert missed it, Joanna Lumley (who played the crazy blonde who lived on vodka in Ab Fab) has just said, on the Graham Norton show (BBC1 TV):
“Prepare my cell now, because I shall not have an ID card.”
She also took a swipe at surveillance cameras, and anti-smoking laws, and the fact that you cannot get within a mile of Number Ten to say boo. To quite enthusiastic applause. I would not imagine that this means very much, but it presumably means a little.
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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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