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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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.
It is about time that some mainstream voices were prepared to challenge the absurd and iniquitous eco-fascist-inspired war against the motorist and, much to my surprise, that voice is emanating from the Conservative Party:
The Tories promised yesterday to raise the motorway speed limit from 70 to 80mph as part of a “fair deal for drivers”.
Tim Collins, the shadow transport secretary, said this was part of a set of reforms to be unveiled later this month.
They will include the removal of the bus and taxi lane on the M4 between Heathrow and London and speed cameras that trap motorists “unfairly”.
Unnecessary road humps and road tolls will be abolished. Some speed limits, through villages, for example, may be tightened.
Its a funny old world when the Conservatives are starting to make anti-establishment noises but that is what they are doing. I suppose it is symptomatic of having spent so long in the political wilderness that even they realise there is nothing to be lost by saying boo to a goose.
It is still a long way from the kind of radicalism that we need and it is not enough to cause me to review my poor opinion of them as an institution but I am prepared to give them credit where a little bit of credit is due.
I think that Hermann Rorschach was really onto something with that little inkblot test of his. If two different but apparently sane people can look at the same picture and see two entirely different things then perhaps that goes at least some way explaining ideology as well as psychology.
A perfect illustration of this lies in the response of British socialist bloggers to the plans for the regionalisation of England. This is the plan to divide England up into nine entirely artifical ‘sectors’ and give each its own assembly with regulatory functions. The details of this project are currently being thrashed out by the Office of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.
Over on the left, this is an eagerly awaited development. One of the new kids on the left-block, Farringdon Street, waxes lyrical:
The northwest is going to have a referendum on a regional assembly. This is a development that should be greeted with alacrity. While its chief protagonist in central government John Prescott hardly has a reputation as a constitutional iconoclast, devolution is vital to the reconstruction of British politics.
Power is to concentrated, the agenda to London centric. The regions especially those furthest from the capital need their own champions. We must increase the sheer amount of political muscle deployable in London and Brussels to advance the regional interest.
And he is far from alone in his enthusiasm. It is sincerely shared by the rest of British left all of whom appear to be getting moist-knickered and dewey-eyed over what they are trying to present as ‘decentralisation’.
Now, if this really was a process of decentralisation it might have some merit. At the very least it would be worthy of further discussion. But this is not a process of decentralisation. Not even to the smallest degree. → Continue reading: Top down and down and down
Andy Duncan decries the bigotry of Members of Parliament in persecuting a minority.
Backbench Labour MPs have voted for a total ban on hunting with dogs. What remains very unclear, however, is what happened to the government’s murky ‘compromise’ option, to allow licensed hunting to continue.
This disappeared due to a mysterious House of Commons drafting error, and a warning to Labour whips, that the Parliament Act could not be used with a total ban. But for a government of control freaks, this seems a mere fig-leaf covering over the traces of some kind of deal between the backbench and the executive of the “You support us, when we need you, and we’ll give you the Ban” type.
Or does it? Could it be even more labyrinthine than this simple conspiracy theory? You may remember last week Mr Peter Hain, our friend from Wales, attempting a complex manoeuvre to kick the Hunting Ban into the long grass. The last thing New Labour needs, with the Tories moving into a fragile lead in the polls, is to cement this lead with a class-war move highly unpopular within Middle England. With the Countryside Alliance able to get 400,000 people to march down Whitehall any time of their choosing, my guess is Tony Blair would rather this problem went away, until he is at least dealt with Iraqgate.
Time will tell what this über-manipulative government is up to, but my guess is that the ban will fail again, in this session of Parliament, due to some “technical error”, and we will be back to where we started, next year, for the whole sorry mess to begin again. You would think they had a majority of ten, the way New Labour carry on, rather than over one hundred. It must be terrible being a socialist back-bencher lion, being led by such donkeys. Excellent.
Last week, Connex became the first private rail operator to be stripped of its franchise after being accused of financial mismanagement and poor service. The company, which carries 300,000 commuters a day, has become a byword for crowded, dirty and late-running trains.
What caught my eye was the fact that Connex is a French-owned company and the main reason for its demise is its contant pleas for funds. Connex has lost its franchise mainly because of its financial management. The SRA (Strategic Rail Authority) decided the extra £200 million of public subsidy demanded by the company would not be wisely spent (after it has already spent £58 million of public money received last December).
In the last couple of weeks we have had some interesting exchanges among commenters attacking and defending France. The trains were held as an example of French superiority in matters of public policy and generally as the evidence of higher civilisation in France. Ross Clark points out in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph:
If there is one good thing to come out of Connex’s humiliation, it will be that it should stop British railway passengers whining: “Why can’t we run our trains like the French do?” Connex, of course, is a French company, which brought with it to Britain experience of running commuter services in Paris.
The superiority of French trains is hugely overstated. TGV trains may be rapid and relatively inexpensive to use, but that is an inter-city service with few stops and it operates thanks only to state subsidies which would make a British taxpayer squeal. Most other French trains run on slack and infrequent timetables which ensure punctuality but at the cost of providing little amenity for the passenger. On holiday in Brittany two years ago I took my family on a 15-mile train ride from Paimpol to Guincamp. The journey took well over half an hour, excluding the 10 minutes that it took to buy a ticket. It cost £17 for two adults and two children; and there were only three trains a day.
The problem with travelling by train in London and the South-East is the millions of passengers being transported over an increasingly large urban area. The rail network is far from efficient but comparing it to the French equivalent is misleading at best. I am sure the guys from the Transport blog could supply all the relevant comparative statistics but even without them one can see that conveying commuters in London is, at least when it comes to size, a slightly different proposition to doing that in Paris, Rome or other European capitals.
According to the Adam Smith Institute, public sector jobs such as “walking officers”, “anti-social co-ordinators”, “diversity co-ordinators” and an army of other such appointments are costing the British taxpayer more than £1 billion a year.
The job section of the Society Guardian supplement has been monitored by the researchers at the ASI for a month. They calculated that public sector jobs whose purpose it at best vague, at worst utterly non-sensical amount to around £1bn a year.
How did this come about? Dr Madsen Pirie, the president of the institute, explains that one enters “the twilight zone of political correctness translated into situations vacant“.
In some issues the Society supplement consists of over 100 pages. Each page features several jobs. The sheer volume of them is immense. It is like entering into another country. One leaves behind the world of productive activity, of goods and services for which people are willing to pay. One leaves the wealth-creating process which sustains our present and future livelihood and Britain’s economic position in the world. One enters instead into a world of public sector services, some of which seem to be of dubious, if any, economic value. The pages take the reader into a world inhabited by anti-social behaviour co-ordinators, of racial equality officers, of social inclusion officers and community liaison officers.
Indeed, job descriptions sound all pretty barmy, here are some of my favourite ones:
Durham County Council – Young People’s Substance Misuse Tier 3 Service Manager (£30k)
Chorley Borough Council – Anti-Social Behaviour co-ordinator
East Kent Coastal Care Trust – Smoking Cessation Specialist: Inequalities (£20k)
Herefordshire Council – Public Rights of Way Developments Officer (£14.8-20.5k)
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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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