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.
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Taxation is in the news just now in Britain, because the word is that Middle England is finally getting fed up with Gordon Brown and his relentless drizzle of sneaky tax increases and failure or refusal – it doesn’t really matter which, does it? – to keep a lid on public spending. Which is perhaps why, when I supped last night with Alex Singleton, we fell to talking about Tax Freedom Day. And I heard myself saying, the way you do, that there is another way to dramatise the scope and nature of the British tax burden, which is to ask: How many taxes does Britain now have?
Frankly I have almost no idea at all of what the answer to this question is, for Britain. But to ask it might achieve many benefits, I surmise. → Continue reading: How many taxes does Britain have?
Surely this cannot be for real? I can only imagine that our Chancellor, Gordon Brown, is simply tickled pink by the thought of the Brussels elite choking on their morning brioche. Or perhaps someone has bought him a Seethe-O-Meter for Christmas and he has decided to test it out on the Labour Party rank-and-file?
That may be petty but how else can one explain a senior left-wing politician using the Telegraph to set out his ‘big vision’ for Britain?
Now we must build an even stronger and deeper national consensus: a shared national economic purpose that the Britain of the Industrial Revolution should become the Britain of a 21st-century enterprise renaissance.
And, mirroring America, that new consensus for enterprise should embrace not only commerce, finance and science, but all schools, all social groups and all local authorities. There should be no no-go areas and it should include even the poorest inner-city areas, where enterprise is the best solution to deprivation.
Er, come again?
So I want business to seize the opportunities of the upturn in the world economy. The Pre-Budget Report will lock in the stability that is the foundation for growth, sweep aside old rules and regulations, and set out a plan to lead Europe in fighting Brussels red tape.
‘Nurse, nurse…Mr Brown has had a funny turn!’
But more enterprising as we are, Britain still lags behind the American rate of business creation and success. And as the world economy strengthens, this is the time to encourage more start-ups, to provide more incentives for new investment and to build a deeper, wider British entrepreneurial culture that once again rivals America.
Shhh…Gordon, for pity’s sake, keep your voice down. You’re not supposed to say these things.
Starting a business or becoming self-employed in America is not seen as the privilege of an elite, but a chance open to anyone with talent, initiative and the will to get up and go. And in America, failing is merely an interruption and a lesson learnt, not a cause of ignominy or an excuse for inertia.
Listen? Can you hear it? Yes, it’s the unmistakeable ‘popping’ sound of Guardianista heads exploding. → Continue reading: How? Now? Brown? Wow!
I have long since passed the point of being surprised or shocked at the sheer number of my fellow Britons who labour under the impression that we do not have a constitution in this country.
So many ill-informed Brits seem to think that a constitution is something only the Americans have; an impression which is probably driven home by the fact that they so often hear Americans citing and arguing about their constitution while, here in the UK, such talk dropped off the radar of debate years ago.
But Britain most certainly does have a constitution only it is not codified. Instead it has been constructed piecemeal and painstainkingly over the best part of the last thousand years and it consists partly of laws but also of customs, coventions, traditions and respected arrangements.
Previous generations of political elites worked with and even cherished this delicate web of checks and balances. In many cases this was because they genuinely valued and respected them but, even where that was not the case, they were rightly fearful of the consequences of tampering with them.
No so Nulabour who have taken a box-cutter to these time-honoured institutions and arrangements and traduced them with a missionary zeal that has left our constitution teetering on the brink of oblivion. For the Blairites, these most British of traditions were simply too embarrassingly ‘outmoded’ to be tolerated. Besides they could not let anything so ‘unEuropean’ and arcane get in the way of their high-octane personal ambitions.
But because most Britons were unaware that they even had a constitution (much less did they realise its importance) the Blairites were able to get away with their campaign of vandalism unremarked. Except, that is , among those few of us who knew exactly what they were up to and why they were up to it and were prepared to kick up a stink.
At long last, that stink appears to have reached some august nostrils:
A written constitution may be needed to protect judges and citizens from the Government’s “disturbing” legal changes, according to Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice.
England’s most senior judge said he was no longer sure that our present – unwritten – constitution would provide the necessary protection.
Referring to the Government’s plans to abolish the Lord Chancellor and create a Supreme Court, Lord Woolf said: “The fact that changes of the scale now taking place can be decided upon without legislation… is disturbing. It does suggest that additional constitutional protection may be necessary.”
In the past, said Lord Woolf, he had believed that “our unwritten constitution, supported by conventions and checks and balances, provided all the protection which the judiciary, and therefore the citizen, required to uphold the proper administration of justice”.
The governments proposals to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor and establish a new ‘Supreme Court’ cut right through the heart of the principle of judicial independence and render the justice system as the mere catspaw of the executive. In light of the way that the law has already been so politicised, this does not auger well for the future of Britain as a free country.
However, while the sentiments that Lord Woolf has expressed are admirable and timely, I fear that his proposal for a new codified constitution may be a cure that proves every bit as bad as the disease. Any constitution that is carved out under the current hegemonic ideology is highly likely to greatly resemble the kind of monstrosity that the European Union is currently trying to foist on Europe. In other words, a micro-managerial charter chocked full of faux ‘rights’, costly entitlements and pages of nauseatingly modish claptrap about ‘diversity’ and the ‘environment’. Thanks but no thanks.
So what then must we do? To be honest, I cannot point to any specific remedy. But I do think it would be a good start if we could simply get the message to enough of our fellow citizens that the traditional Anglo-Saxon common law freedoms they take for granted are in mortal danger and that they are sleepwalking into a state of despotism.
The time of year has arrived for the annual Turner Prize for modern art: an exhibition of dreary, talentless, post-modernist rubbish fawned over and slobbered upon by a carnival procession of dreary, talentless, post-modernist critics, groupies, poseurs and assorted hangers-on (lots of ‘dog-turd-in-a-bottle’ type installations, hailed as a ‘devastating social critique’).
I don’t care who won it or why but I could not possibly let this scandalously hypocritical bit of dreck pass by without comment:
Described by some critics as “a deeply weird artist”, Perry makes classically shaped pots, which now fetch between £8,000 and £15,000.
But his decorative motifs – transfers, photographs and squiggly drawings – are anything but traditional. Inspired mostly by what he calls his unhappy childhood in Essex after his father left home, many are scenes of child abuse or erotica or angry social comment on class or the consumer culture.
Obviously the ‘deeply weird’ Mr Perry is so angry about ‘consumer culture’ that he could not possibly let one of his home-made pots go for less than 8000 smackers!
As Brian Micklethwait recently observed:
When a government starts to slide seriously into the dustbin of history, the very things which it tries to do to halt the slide become part of the slide.
He was referring to Her Majesty’s Government’s rather comical attempt to shore up its plummeting popularity by launching a ‘Big Conversation’ and, for it is worth, I think he is right.
But does this formula have wider applications? If the answer to that question is ‘yes’ then perhaps it can be applied to the democratic process itself:
A public debate on lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 has been called for by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer.
A lower voting age would encourage more young people to become involved in politics, he told the Observer paper.
The Electoral Commission, which advises ministers on how elections can be modernised, began consulting on the voting age in the summer following concern over falling turnouts among young voters.
I can entirely understand why the idea of lowering the voting age to 16 (at present it is 18) should have a certain appeal among the political classes. By every standard that can actually be measured, democratic politics is in steady decline. The membership roles of all main political parties are now so low that corporate donations are the only thing saving them from bankruptcy and voter turnout in elections is dropping year on year.
It is probably to early to pronounce that democracy is in crisis. It is not. Well, not yet. But there is now a sufficiently large block of public indifference to send a shudder down the spines of not just politicians but also the professional classes whose wealth and status is entirely dependent on state activism.
The threat of a creeping but inexorable loss of legitimacy has prompted calls for ‘something to be done’. In the past few years there has been much chundering about making voting complusory. But the trouble with that is that it may, overnight, turn a large block of public indifference into a large block of civil disobedience and that will only make things worse. So, extending the franchise is probably their safest bet.
I am against it, of course. People of all ages tend to vote for three things: more government, more entitlements and more laws. There is no reason to suppose that younger voters will somehow buck this trend. Nor is this merely my customarily gloomy nature at work, it is an analysis borne out by history. From the 19th Century onwards the growth of the welfare/regulatory state has steadily tacked upwards on the same line that marks the growth of enfranchisement. Since governments must respond to the wishes and aspirations of those that elect them, the former will tend to follow the latter.
But if the voting age is going to be lowered then it will be lowered regardless of whether I approve or not. The real question is whether is will achieve its stated aims. Supporters of the lower voting age are hoping that giving 16 year-olds ther right to vote will enable them to express themselves, ignite their imaginations and re-quicken the democratic process.
Well, who knows? Maybe that will be the case. But it seems to me that the opposite effect is just as likely. Namely, that the steps taken to reverse the slide of democratic legitimacy just become a part of that slide as the teenyvoters stay away in droves, thus converting a nagging concern into a slough of despond.
And where do we go from there? Good question.
Gordon Brown is facing voter unrest according to a poll that suggested Middle Britain has grown weary of tax rises and no longer believes higher spending can deliver improved public services.
The ICM survey carried out for the think-tank Reform found that 82 per cent believe services have not improved despite tax rises. Nearly as many – 78 per cent – think they need reform not extra money. Worryingly for Mr Brown, the poll found strong support for the principle of lower taxes, even among Labour voters, nearly three-quarters of whom believe British competitiveness depends on keeping taxes low.
For those who think that the Tory party will now ‘get off the fence’ and trumpet their low-tax message to the world, there is some bad news. As their tiny derranged statist minds catch a whiff of power, the Tories get cold feet on their tax-cut promise (well, more like mumbling).
Despite behind-the-scenes pressure from colleagues, Mr Howard has signalled his determination to move away from Iain Duncan Smith’s talk of tax cuts amid fears they would be difficult to deliver.
Oliver Letwin, the new shadow chancellor, warned at the weekend that such a pledge would be “irresponsible” and even hinted that an incoming Tory government could face “transitional costs” to implement its manifesto that would push up public spending.
‘Irresponsible’ and ‘transitional cost’, oh yes. Bigger government anyone? It woudl be fair to say that Samizdata.net position is that the folks who see the ‘resurgent’ Tory party as ‘just the ticket’ to rescue us from Tony Blair not just wrong but deluded.
It is such a comfort to know that our public authorities are prepared to crack down hard on this sort of thing:
A prison officer was sacked for making an allegedly insulting remark about Osama bin Laden two months after the September 11 attacks, an employment tribunal heard yesterday.
Colin Rose, 53, was told he had to go because, although he did not know it, three Muslim visitors could have heard his “insensitive” comment about the world’s most reviled terrorist.
The assistant governor at Blundeston Prison, near Lowestoft, Suffolk, gave him a ticking off at the time. But he was sacked after a six-month investigation.
Mr Rose, a former Coldstream Guardsman with a 21-year unblemished record in the Prison Service, is claiming unfair dismissal.
The Norwich hearing was told that on Nov 15, 2001, he threw some keys into a metal chute at the prison gatehouse. When someone said it sounded as if he had thrown them so hard that they were going through the tray at the bottom of the chute, Mr Rose said: “There’s a photo of Osama bin Laden there.”
Just in case Mr Rose happens to be reading this, he should memorise and repeat the following statement:
“Osama bin Laden is merely the poor, desperate victim of oppression and social injustice”.
With sufficient sensitivity training, I am quite confident that unpleasantness of this nature can be avoided in the future.
It’s useless new law time again in the UK.
From today it will be an offence to drive a vehicle on a public road while using a mobile telephone (or ‘cellphone’ for our North American readers).
A complete waste of time. Which is not to say that driving a vehicle while using a mobile telephone certainly can be dangerous, so is driving a car while unwrapping a sandwich, tying shoelaces, fiddling with the buttons on the radio or playing the accordion. Whatever the object of distraction, the point is that the motorist is driving without due care and attention and since that is already an offence, surely no elaboration is required.
If the police are unable or unwilling to prosecute motorists for extant offences then what on earth is the point of merely enacting more?
Really this all smacks of the the short-term ‘something-must-be-done’ mentality and the impulse which requires the demonisation of objects rather than the uses to which those objects are put.
The UK media are blitzing the issue as a part of which I have been drafted in as libertarian voice-du-jour. I have not long returned from the BBC studios in Central London where I got my oar in on the Jeremy Vine show and, this evening, I will adding my piece to a similar debate on Classic Gold radio.
For anyone interested enough to listen in or phone-in, the show will be streamed live on-line at just after 8.00pm UK time.
When a government starts to slide seriously into the dustbin of history, the very things which it tries to do to halt the slide become part of the slide. All occasions are now starting to inform against this government:
Labour’s new initiative to listen to voters, The Big Conversation, appears to be a big con: a Telegraph investigation has revealed that party officials have handpicked contributors – and have then edited out their negative comments.
The disclosure will be an embarrassment for Tony Blair, who launched the exercise on Friday, saying it was proof that the Government was listening to the people of Britain.
The Prime Minister called for “an honest and serious debate about the future”, and urged voters to text or e-mail their views to a special website, www.bigconversation.org.uk.
The Telegraph discovered yesterday, however, that many of the stories on the website were crafted by Labour officials who interviewed carefully selected individuals known to be broadly sympathetic to Labour – and then cut out any negative comments.
This government started quite impressively, with temporarily persuasive talk of not increasing taxes, and of reforming public services in ways that might have worked, e.g. by sort-of privatising them. But it is all now dribbling away into incompetence. As a devoted opponent of collectivist delusions of all kinds, I supported and still support the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein. No doubt some still have high hopes for the future, but frankly it doesn’t look as if there’ll be many achievements to come.
Let’s someone who is not me rephrase that. The government started impressively. I support the toppling of Saddam Hussein. High hopes. Many achievements to come.
“Have your say” says this fatuous website. I especially loathe that expression. You have your say, and then they do whatever they were going to do anyway.
We at Samizdata are anxious to hear from all our suckreaders. Any critical comment on this post will be severely edited in a way which will completely change its overall meaning until we approve of it, and will then be ignored.
I heartily endorse this, from Telemachus:
Recently, Ruth Lea, Policy Director at the Institute of Directors, was fired as Blair pressured her boss to rid her of this troublesome priestess, with the possible promise of honours. Anyone who can be such an effective thorn in the Government’s side should be on the Tory frontbench, and the Tories would be wise to offer her a peerage. While Theresa May holds her job solely due to the politically correct faction in the party demanding that a woman have a place in the Shadow Cabinet, Ms Lea would not need such backstops, as she has an agile mind and a good grasp of key issues. Besides, what could be better than the IoD director entering the Lords only to find Ruth Lea already there, attacking anti-business and anti-choice policies (like current higher education policies)?
And this guy not known to me until now, comments in agreement. (The link to Samizdata Illuminatus’s Samizdata piece about Lea was in the original Telemachus piece, by the way.) And here’s another guy who concurred, at the time when Ms. Lea was in the process of being ousted from the IoD.
I recall once, a long time ago now, doing a radio show with Ms. Lea and I can confirm that she is just the kind of woman who needs no womanist policies to get ahead in the world. Smart as a whip. With luck, this posting may stir up some more support for the advancement of this most admirable lady.
Original content is nice, very nice, but it can take rather long to concoct. So it is that the lifeblood of the blogosphere is the copying and pasting, and linking to, of (pardon me if my prepositions are in a bit of a twist there) an online newspaper article, interspersed with some comment, hopefully shrewd and maybe sometimes well informed.
But what do I know about a story like this? I’m no anti-terrorist expert. Yet clearly it is of significance (as Alice Bachini also notes) that some bad people are apparently being pursued and captured by some good people, and that we are all somewhat safer as a result. Do we ignore events like this merely because we have nothing much to add?
Anti-terrorist officers are searching a second property close to the home of a suspected al-Qa’eda operative arrested yesterday.
The flat in Gloucester, near to Sajid Badat’s terraced house where explosives were found yesterday, is to undergo forensic examination. Officers executed a search warrant on the property at 1am this morning.
A police van was parked outside the second property, a shop with a flat above it. The shop, directly opposite a police station, was shut up but the curtains of its first-floor flat were open.
And so on. It seems that London’s Metropolitan Police (The Met, as we say here) were involved, which would strongly suggest that London was the target of all this explosive collecting, not some place in rural Gloucestershire.
So, speaking as a Londoner myself, and assuming as I now do that it wasn’t all planted … good!
First, they came for the tobacco.
With the ‘junk food’ demonisation campaign in full swing, now is the time for our heroic public officials to do their stuff:
All foods – including fast food and snacks – should carry clear warnings about their calorie content, MPs suggested on Thursday.
Top executives from McDonalds, Cadbury Schweppes, PepsiCo UK and Kelloggs faced questions from the House of Commons Health Select Committee.
Obesity levels are soaring in the UK, but the firms said they did not believe that this was their fault.
The Food Standards Agency has described the problem as a “ticking timebomb”.
Well, they would, wouldn’t they. If food were not a problem then we would not need a ‘Food Standards Agency’ and then we would all be on our way to hell in a handcart (and we all need a handcart because we will simply be too obese to walk there).
This Court of Inquisition is merely Step 2. Step 3 is a choice of either legislative force or ‘voluntary code of conduct’. Step 4 is another public campaign (disseminated by a reliably compliant media) because Step 3 ‘is not working’.
Then on to Step 5: the levying of ‘sin taxes’ on hamburgers to ‘encourage a change of behaviour’. The money raised then pays for a lot more Food Standards Agents.
There it is. Step-by-step. Simple when you know how.
We are all in the wrong business.
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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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