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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From the Samizdata last week on the English regional assemblies:
This is not a devolution of power and decision-making, this is a retrenchment of power at the top; a mere administrative reshuffle to create yet another fantastically expensive tier of labyrinthine bureaucracy in what amounts to nothing more than giant job-creation scheme for technocrats, busybodies and form-fillers. Nobody is going to gain more control over their own lives and no community is going to have any more local power bestowed upon it. It is just another greasy pole for the social-working class to climb up.
To the Spectator this week on the English regional assemblies:
In theory, stronger regional government might seem like a good idea, serving to counter the centralising instincts of Whitehall and the parochialism of town halls. But in practice it does not work out like that. All that happens is that we end up having to fork out for another lot of party careerists and pointless bureaucrats, while the Civil Service and municipalities carry on as before. And so, with no real role to perform, the new regional bodies create endless work for themselves to justify their own existences, desperately hyping up every one of their unwanted initiatives and reports.
And from Samizdata on the role of Brussels:
The regional assemblies are being created as civilian Gauleiters in order to ensure that the laws and directives of the EU Commission are administered and enforced at local level and to jockey with each for the chunks of redistributed largesse handed out by the various arms of the Euro-state. Their job is not to represent the will of the people to those in power, it is to ensure that the will of those in power is applied to the people.
To the Spectator on the role of Brussels:
Regionalism is part of an insidious agenda to end the nation state, so Britain can more easily slot into the new United States of Europe. Brussels, hope Euro-enthusiasts, will be able to bypass national governments and instead work directly with the regional assemblies. Indeed, one of the favourite phrases of the European Commission is ‘a Europe of the regions’.
This could be the start of a consensus.
In this posting I want to pull together all the reasons for thinking that the “New Labour” project may now be unravelling, and unravelling so seriously that there is a real possibility that they might even lose the next general election. There is no one cause of this phenomenon, just lots of things coming together.
My first because deals head-on with the – I presume – widespread American belief that … well, how could we not love Tony Blair? But there are many other becauses now assembling themselves, and the list that follows is surely not exhaustive:
Because being popular in the USA doesn’t necessarily make you popular in your own country. Like Thatcher and Gorbachev before him, Tony Blair is now revered by many Americans, but this doesn’t make him any more liked here. If anything, probably rather less so. Being thought of as a Prime Minister who is more concerned to play the world statesman than to grapple with the actual problems on your own desk is not a plus. Prime Minister Callaghan never recovered from the public perception (“Crisis? What crisis?”) of him as a man who didn’t care about his own country’s problems because they were too boring and too intractable. Blair is flirting with the same stuff now.
Because now fewer and fewer people are Labour or are Conservative, they merely vote Labour or Conservative. Party membership of all parties is now tiny. When there’s a shift of voter mood, such shifts can be bigger than they used to be, because more people are willing to switch. Even majorities like the current Labour one can vanish, as quickly as they arrived. → Continue reading: Labour could lose the next general election because …
The BBC’s political editor Andrew Marr has reported that “senior Government sources” believed that weapons of mass destruction would never be found in Iraq.
Oh dear.
Now let me state my position. I was all for the war against Iraq, and still believe the UK took the right decision to go in, with our US allies, to remove its disgraceful socialist dictatorship. But spare a thought for poor old Tony. He had to convince all of those Guardian readers, and all of those who marched against his policy, as well as those of us who’d already decided the rules changed, when two hijacked planes flew into the twin towers.
So Tony spiced things up, a bit. And thereby hoisted himself on the petard of WMD. And now he’s beginning to twist on it, ever so slightly, in the wind. In the last two days, in a subtle, nay, almost undetectable, change of emphasis, he’s abandoned the line of saying the weapons will be found. He is now saying, quite categorically, that evidence of the weapons will be found.
Now weapons of mass destruction are one thing — a bit of plutonium here, a bit of uranium centrifuge there — but evidence? What constitutes evidence? An old copy of the Cairo Times, with a handwritten Arabic scrawl on the back, saying ‘The Fist of God is in place, Sire’. Will that do? I suppose that depends on either how many people in GCHQ can write Arabic, or whether you’re a fan of Frederik Forsyth.
But the interesting thing is this. Did you spot the change of emphasis, when Blair switched to it on Tuesday? I must fess up, and say I didn’t. He’s a slippery devil.
But those nice kind clever people, at the BBC, did, bless them. Isn’t self-inflicted fratricide, between lefties, simply excellent entertainment.
Make no mistake, the moves afoot to ban hunting in Britain have very little to do with animal welfare but everything to do with class warfare. It is nothing less than a clash between those who believe civil society must be tolerant to those who share different minority views and who wish to freely associate in the pursuit of a beloved activity… and those who believe that state and violence backed political interaction, rather than society and voluntary social interaction, is the core around which all activity must revolve.
The class warriors of the Labour and LibDem Parties, and a few statist Tory confreres, wish to regulate notions of free associating civil society out of existence and replace it with a regulatory democratic state in which no aspect of rights or affinity are beyond the reach of regulatory politics… nothing less than an intolerant dictatorship of the political plurality.
Well a bunch of people met in front of Parliament today who said that regardless of what the bigoted class warriors of Westminster say, they are not going to cooperate.
The class warriors are not ‘progressive’ at all… they are in fact the heirs to a view of the role of the politics which in days gone by used law to oppress other despised minorities, such as homosexuals or Roman Catholics. They are just hate filled sanctimonious collectivist bigots.
(the photos taken today courtesy of The Dissident Frogman because my camera is knackered)
The Telegraph reports that Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the man in charge of drafting Europe’s first constitution, admitted yesterday that the much-trumpeted removal of the word “federal” from the text changed nothing and was merely a ruse to shield the British government from criticism. The former French president said the cosmetic change that did not affect the shape or character of the future EU or lessen the transfer of real power to Brussels.
I knew the word federal was ill-perceived by the British and a few others. I thought that it wasn’t worth creating a negative commotion, which could prevent them supporting something that otherwise they would have supported. So I rewrote my text, replacing intentionally the word federal with the word communautaire, which means exactly the same thing.
So much for the British government’s insistence that the EU constitution will not lead to a European superstate. Downing Street has hailed the removal of the word federal as its biggest triumph in the 18-month long drafting process. Giscard d’Estaing also moaned:
It’s a campaign by people who want to destroy Europe, which is something that’s very negative and counter-productive. But I was not convinced they were really influencing the British people.
The ‘patrician’ Frenchman is right about our desire to destroy Europe or at least the bit that insists on dragging Britain into it. Such efforts do appear to be if not counter-productive, certainly rather ineffective so far. However, if we could make him right about the influence on the British people…
Although there was a debate a little while ago in the UK about the desirability (or otherwise) of state-funded political parties it did not generate a great deal of interest and quickly subsided.
However, and by default, the argument is now over because we find that we have a state-funded political party that evolved all by itself. This new party is called the BBC and it is currently engaged in a locked-horns, blood-spattered confrontation with the government over the Iraq war:
THE BBC last night defiantly reasserted its independence and impartiality last night as it insisted that it was right to broadcast claims that Downing Street had “sexed up” a dossier on Iraq’s weapons.
The corporation’s governors issued the strongly worded statement as No 10 urged the BBC not to prolong its extraordinary row with the Government by standing by “demonstrably untrue” allegations.
[From UK Times so no link.]
This is nothing but nothing but good. I am relishing every single second of this catfight; revelling in every bit of mutual recrimination and celebrating every reciprocal allegation of skulduggery and deceit. It is all so glorious.
The government will probably win out in the short term and force the BBC into a humiliating climbdown but that is just the start of the fun. If Blair and his chums knew anything about the true use of political power they would then proceed to shut down the BBC and sell off the broadcasting rights to someone like Rupert Murdoch (or, better still, Silvio Berlusconi). But, because they are the Labour Party, they won’t do that. Instead, they will leave it at that and the BBC, like wounded beast, will seek revenge by campaigning against the government from the left.
Meanwhile, we sit on the hill and watch the tigers fight in the valley.
In response to another European Directive, the supine government of Her Majesty, will later today impose Workers Councils upon all companies employing 150 workers, or more. In 2008, the same regulations will apply to all companies with 50 workers, or more. No doubt, now this principle has been established, it will apply to my hiring of a single plumber, in the fullness of time.
Employers will be obliged to consult these councils on any change of company ownership, or on any change in the numbers of staff employed by the company; no doubt, this workers’ control will ultimately govern every minute decision taken by any employer, as the ratchet tightens itself further. This will, obviously, usher in a period of wealth, happiness, and economic harmony, as they currently possess in the rest of the mainstream EU. Like in Germany, and in France, for instance.
It seems now, that when I hire someone, by the hour, to carry out a task for me, not only do I have to compensate them, at an agreed rate, for the disutility of their labour, but I also become in thrall to them. I have to ask them whether I can suspend their employment, offer them less cash per hour, or sell my own property. Excellent. This won’t encourage me to invest offshore, invest onshore using more capital-intensive robotics, or sack more workers until I get down to a maximum of 49 people, or whatever the next minimum is. It won’t do any of that, no. It’s all been thought through.
It also offers another splendid opportunity we cannot afford to miss. As the EU expands to the east, taking in countries such as Turkey, Cyprus, Siberia, and so on, the word European becomes increasingly redundant. We could replace the whole phrase with Union. But this single word looks a little lonely, by itself, a little doubtful. To give it some added strength, let’s uniquely identify what kind of union we have, by the addition of a description of its dominant economic philosophy. This gives us, the Workers Council Union. (You may be able to guess where this is going  )
Now, as we expand to the east, we need to make our Russian brethren (or comrades), feel a little more included. They’ve always felt a bit out on a limb, so I think we should take this opportunity to make them feel more at home. So let’s rename this new improved Union, in their honour. (This also takes us away from the evil English language of the American capitalists.)
So the Workers Council Union becomes the Rabochiy Sovyet Union. Which looks good so far. But brainstorming it even further, isn’t this now a little bit too long? And isn’t that pronunciation a little difficult, particularly for the Germanic tongue? In the words of Jeremy Clarkson, yes. I think so. So let’s shorten it, and simplify that pronunciation at the same time, killing two birds with one stone. Et voila, we have arrived at the perfect social democracy we have been trying to achieve for all these years. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, please, a round of applause, the new Soviet Union!
At the risk of emulating the Roman Republic’s Cato, who added Carthago delenda est! (Carthage must be destroyed) to the end of every speech he made, or letter he wrote, I think I’m developing my own personal version. The sooner we are out of the EU, the better. It really cannot come soon enough.
The Chancellor Gordon Brown has long been hailed as an economic wonder, a giant, a prince among men; a proto-tyrant possibly, but nevertheless an economic God. What a load of old spoons. Those feckless Tory MPs in the House of Commons may be scared of his bombastic rhetoric, his curling lip, and his comprehensive knowledge of the canon of John Kenneth Galbraith; well, at least the idiot’s guide to John Kenneth Galbraith. But let me tell you of a tale, to put a sword to the lie of this risible greatness.
It began yesterday morning, at 10am. The phone rang. A certain Englishman, of Scottish, Irish, and Jewish extraction, picked up the phone.
“Yes?”
“Hello, is that Mrs Duncan?”
“No, who’s this?”
“It’s the Inland Revenue, in Liverpool. Can I ask you some questions?” The man panicked. Did he ‘owe’ £10,000 more in Corporation Tax? Had his company secretary, or accountant, failed to send in Form IR-XYP/9100/97/a.30, his thirtieth of the year? He decided to go for the polite response, in case this was being taped.
“Yes…”
“But first, you will need to answer some security questions…” → Continue reading: Tales from the kingdom of the mad
Having been published last month, this article, in blogosphere terms, is verging on the archaeological but it is well worth a delve into the archives for a sobering illustration of just how despotic and deranged our ruling classes have become.
Not content with having turned our justice system into a playground for victimologists, parasites and professional race-baiters, the Home Office is now preparing the ground for an arbitrary police-state:
The government’s war against men is now plumbing ever more astonishing depths. On Radio Four’s Today programme yesterday, the Home Secretary David Blunkett could scarcely wait to boast of new proposals to deal with domestic violence.
Anyone truly concerned with civil liberties could not fail to have been appalled by Mr Blunkett’s comments. The problem was, he enthusiastically explained, that at present ‘you have to get someone through court’ before a domestic violence suspect can be restrained.
So his solution is to restrain them before they even get to court. In other words, he wants action taken against a man on the basis of an unproven allegation by a woman– made under the protection of anonymity, to boot. So much for this Home Secretary’s understanding of the presumption of innocence, the meaning of justice and the necessity for a trial of the facts.
The article deserves to be read in it entirety in order to understand the extent to which the Home Office has deliberately ignored or manipulated statistical data in order to justify their insistence that male violence in the home is far worse and far more common than it actually is. Another case of tailoring the data to fit the political agenda.
These wicked and spiteful proposals are not on the books yet but they are clearly on the drawing board and, as per usual, it is only a matter of time before they are enacted thus ending the protection of the law for every man in this country.
The scope for abuse of powers like this is simply enormous and any case of abuse will lead to a man losing his home, access to his children and possibly even his livelihood all on the basis of an unproven and unanswerable allegation.
The damage this will cause to families and the fabric of society remains to be seen but, tragically, it will be seen thanks to a regime which is deeply in thrall to dangerously extremist femininst ideologues and which has now run out of easy targets.
[My thanks to Dr.Chris Tame who posted this link to the Libertarian Alliance Forum.]
When the state of California was hit by rolling power blackouts two years ago, some commentators at the time daftly blamed it on privatised electricity generation, when of course the real cause was the partial deregulation of power in the state. There was no market incentive for power generation firms to increase production, and ferocious environmental controls and “not in my back yard” planning wrangles also crimped capacity.
Well, looks like we could be headed for a similar fate here in Britain, for the first time since the unlamented 1970s, according to this article. If we have a bad winter in say, 2006, the lights could go out for part of the time.
Not all of this can or should be blamed on the current Labour government. But there is no doubt that its determination to suppress nuclear power, its failure to genuinely liberate energy supply and production, could leave the UK facing a serious problem. The economic consequences could be disastrous.
So when you find yourself brushing your teeth in the dark, think of the insincere, smiling visage of Saint Tony.
Gabriel Stein, the Swedish economist who gave the UK the concept of a Tax Freedom Day, should be pleased today, on the growing success of his campaign. Brother of the famous Peter Stein, another Swedish economist who helped P.J.O’Rourke write the oxymoronic “Good Socialism” chapter, in O’Rourke’s Eat the Rich, it is a tribute to Gabriel Stein’s tenacity that the meme of Tax Freedom Day is spreading.
To put Gordon Brown under further pressure, after a recent series of Treasury financial gaffes, the Tories have proposed an “Annual Tax Freedom” day (more here, 2nd piece down).
Lord Saatchi, the Tory Treasury spokesman, has called for a public holiday on the day when the British taxpayer stops working for the Treasury and starts earning for himself, currently June the 2nd.
Personally, I’d like to see the Chancellor put into the stocks, in Trafalgar Square, each year, on this day, for a ritual pelting with rotten fruit. To add incentive to the incumbent, for each week the Chancellor reduces the Tax Freedom Day by, this reduces the fruit stockpile by seven of the squishiest items. Lucky citizens, drawn by lot, will throw one piece of fruit each, for every other rotten day of the year their income is stolen! 
But just a simple holiday, perhaps replacing ‘May Day’ and re-named ‘Trafalgar Day’, would be a good start. And a great way to highlight any future stealth-tax rises to the tax-serfs of this country, and tie the hands of any future government by making it clear exactly how much they are robbing from us.
Great work, Gabriel, and his sponsors, the Adam Smith Institute.
Andy Duncan on a free vote on gay partnerships.
Following David Carr’s earlier piece, on Conservative plans to raise the UK motorway speed limit to 80mph, further signs are emerging of the Conservatives thawing out their 1950s attitudes, in a ‘what have we got to lose?’ policy shake-out.
In a probable truce with outspoken maverick MPs, like John Bercow, IDS is going to allow a free vote on the government’s planned ‘civil partnerships’ for same-sex couples.
Come on IDS, frighten a few more horses!
I don’t think they’re going to abolish the NHS, the day after a possible Conservative victory, or hold an immediate referendum to leave the EU, but the old paternalism, which puts so many of us off the Conservatives, looks though it may be fading at very long last. Though as Mr Carr might add, let’s see how long it lasts, before we get too excited.
Samizdata.net aficionados, particularly those in same-sex business partnerships, may also be interested in a difficult-to-plug tax spin-off from the planned new gay rights extension. Many in such a position may choose to use the new gay rights as a way to avoid Capital Gains Tax and Inheritance Tax. Shhhhh!!! Don’t tell Gordon.
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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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