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The Observer reports that it is now “highly unlikely” that Big Blunkett’s plan to introduce compulsory National Identity Cards for innocent British citizens will be included in the next Queen’s speech.
Apparently the decision follows new evidence that ID Cards would be “close to useless” in fighting terrorism – something those of us opposed to the idea have been saying for ages.
Another problem is the “foundation documents” required to gain an ID card. If ID Cards are issued on the basis of (for example) birth certificates and birth certificates are easily forged then ID Cards are worthless.
If this report is accurate then it is good news for UK civil liberties. However it doesn’t mean the threat is over, we need to remain vigilant. There is every likelihood that Big Blunkett will try to resurrect his pet project.
Cross posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe
Today I received an email from the LSE (that’s London School of Economics) Hayek Society. I’ve been in occasional touch with this operation over the years, and have attended a few of their events, which have always been lively and well organised. It would appear that, this academic year, under the leadership of Nick Spurrell (whom I met again a few weeks ago at the office of the International Policy Network office where he was helping out over the Summer, alongside samizdatista Alex Singleton), the Hayek Society is keeping all this going in fine style.
They have elected a new Committee. Here it is:
President: Nick Spurrell; Vice-President: Lauri Tahtinen; Treasurer: Sarah Meacham; Secretary: Natalia Mamaeva; Financial Officers: Vicky Yuen, Peter Bellini; Events Officer: Szymon Ordys, Louis Haynes, Oliver Dully; Editor-in-Chief: Erica Yu; Co-editors: Michael Chen, Harry Cherniak; PR Director: Daniel Freedman.
Now apart from Nick, I don’t know who these people are whose names I’ve just put up here in lights. But I like it that many of these names are female (Sarah, Natalia, Vicky, Erica), and that many are non-British (Tahtinen, Mamaeva, Yuen, Ordys, Yu). All the non-Brits could just be Americans, but I’m pretty sure that there are more places of birth involved that that. These people are bound to attract lots more people, of lots of types, from lots of faraway places. I mean, if each of them invites four friends … In a university, a mere two or three people can make a huge difference. The Hayek Society already has a definite thirteen, and the year has only just started. Extraordinary.
The Hayek Society has for years now been dosing the LSE with the message of limited government liberalism – liberalism, that is, when it really was liberalism and before the socialists of the sort who infested the LSE during an earlier era got hold of the word liberalism and turned it on its head. And through the LSE, the Hayek Society will dose lots of other places besides in the years to come. Get them when they’re young …
The LSE is an important place and always has been. For good or ill, what they think today, the world thinks tomorrow. And this time around it’s for good.
There have been a great many animated films produced in the last 15 years. Many have been ordinary, but a surpringly large number have been good to wonderful. This article is an overview of these movies.
In the world of animation, once in a while see an animator or an animation studio going through a wonderful creative period. Over the last fifteen years, we have had three or four such hot patches. They do, I think, all owe a lot to the resurgence in animation that occurred due to the first of these, at Disney.
Until the late 1980s, Disney’s animation division had appeared to be in terminal decline. However, this somehow changed: Disney went through a stunning (but relatively brief) period of drawn animated musicals at the end of the 1980s and start of the 1990s, thanks to the wonderful musical work of Howard Ashman and Alan Menkin. In retrospect I think there were two great movies that came out of this, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, but these changed animation forever. The two Disney movies that followed these (and which were as anticipated as they were because of them) were more financially successful, but I don’t think they were quite as good. Aladdin was an Ashman/Menkin movie, but the influence of Robin Williams made it a little uneven, in my opinion. And, very sadly, Howard Ashman was dying when he wrote the music, and it is not as finished and polished as on the earlier movies. The Disney movie that followed that was The Lion King, which had its music written by Elton John and Tim Rice, and although I think this movie is nicely made, it lacks the style of the earlier ones. After that, Disney’s drawn animation went into a steep decline, from which it has not recovered. (Just out of interest – the music and choreography of the first song – Going Through the Motions – of the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is deliberately intended to look like a number from an Ashman/Menkin musical).
Financially, these four movies were extraordinarily successful. Prior to these movies, animation was considered to be something of a niche business, but these movies changed that idea utterly. They grossed far more than anyone had believed possible. Still, though, the audience was mainly children, and this fact made them some of the most financially successful films ever made. This was because they were made after VHS video recorders were ubiquitous. VHS video was a rental business, as people generally only wanted to watch movies once. However, the exception to this was films aimed at children. Children would (and will) watch the same movies over and over, and therefore parents would actually buy VHS tapes for their children. At the time, the prices of such tapes were high, and stunning numbers of the tapes of these four animated movies were sold. (Low quality direct to video sequels were made of these films as well, and these raked in even more). The films had not cost all that much to make (animation was not an art held in high regard just prior to The Little Mermaid) and the levels of profitability were just amazing. (The profit on The Lion King is in the billions of dollars, on an investment of maybe $50 million). Even better, children’s films are hugely valuable things in studio archives, as a new generation of children comes along every few years. (The Ashman/Merkin films also were helped by the fact that they coincided with the arrival of the baby boom echo generation of children. Hollywood was too dumb to be actually aware of this, and didn’t actually figure it out until after the release of the horror film Scream in 1996, but that is a different story, although one well worth telling some other time).
Disney’s competitors saw all this, and felt that they wanted a part of this profit. → Continue reading: Waiting for Miyazaki, or Thoughts on the state of animated movies.
Nowadays we need to celebrate every victory, however small.
Management at the Trelleborg chemical company in Leicester have agreed to stop tagging their employees.
Under the recently imposed scheme workers had to request and wear a red tag whenever they took a break. Not surprisingly they complained that this was demeaning. Following ACAS intervention the company agreed to scrap the system.
The fact that such a repulsive scheme has been scrapped is encouraging. The fact that the company thought they could get away with it in the first place is worrying.
BBC report here
The Age of Reagan: I 1964 –1980
Steven F. Hayward
Prima Lifestyles, 2001
This is a very long book (718 pages + another 100 pages of notes etc.) and it is somewhat daunting to realise that in due course a second volume will come to complete the story. It might be as well to say that this is emphatically not a biography, not even a political biography; the title and the sub-title The Fall of the Old Liberal Order make this clear. It is more a history of the times, from the anti-Goldwater landslide of 1964 to the Reagan landslide of 1980. The cumulative impression of the book itself is its richness and how its detail ministers to its analysis.
And it is a sorry, not to say a frightening tale, telling as it does of the collapse of American self-confidence and the rise of the counter-culture of self-hatred amongst its elite. The narrative is admittedly partisan, but at the very least a case that needs to be put. As for the Presidents of the period, Hayward’s judgements are that Johnson was irresolute, reacting to events minimally, Nixon misguided, obsessive and unfortunate, Ford a mere stopgap and Carter simply disastrous. All of them seemed to have underestimated Soviet malevolence and overestimated Soviet stability; for the latter the intelligence services seem to have been especially at fault.
For anyone who has been misled into thinking that Reagan was an intellectual nullity, here is ample evidence that he was an independent and original thinker, often insisting on keeping to his own line or script in face of criticism from his advisers and speechwriters. Many of his statements, which at the time seemed naive, questionable, wrongheaded or too extreme now seem merely farsighted. He was also optimistic about America and had no time for any rationale for its decline, such as Kissinger, student of the rise and fall of European states, believed in, or at least feared. Nor was he put off by the “complexity” arguments of those who despised him for his simple attitude to problems and their solutions. Some of his difficulties with his own advisers and supporters lay in persuading them that this attitude could be made plausible to the public as electorate.
As much as the first two thirds of the book, however, has little mention of Reagan, for it is a history of how the US got into the messes that Reagan, it is fair to say, rescued it from. By far the biggest mess, which he was too late to do anything about, was, of course, the Vietnam War and it is quite plain that the left-leaning media and intellectuals, combined with political ineffectiveness and downright ignorance, contributed overwhelmingly to its being lost. To illustrate US political masochism: the two “war pictures” that had the greatest negative impact on home support – execution of the Vietcong prisoner and the napalmed little girl – won Pulitzer Prizes for the photographers.
It is not exactly necessary to be reminded, but it is necessary to bear in mind that it was under two Democrat Presidents, Kennedy and Johnson, that the US entered and enmeshed itself in the Vietnam “quagmire” (though this is not a term I recall being used by the author). The muddled, incremental escalation of the conflict by Johnson is described in Ch 4. It was also a Democrat Congress, not the President, the hapless Ford, that abandoned the South Vietnamese, even refusing to supply them arms.
Even more so was Cambodia betrayed, and the dignified reproaches of their leaders, as they refused the offer of evacuation by the American ambassador, to face certain death, make sad reading (p. 408). It is a terrible comment on what the consensus was that Reagan’s characterisation of the US effort in Vietnam as a “noble cause” was regarded as eccentric and chauvinist, just as later was “evil empire” (but for the latter’s vindication see The Week, 15/2/02, p. 13).
All through the account is woven the political manoeverings of various, almost forgotten presidential hopefuls and their minions. The ups and downs of Reagan’s two bids for the Republican nomination and the campaign that won him the Presidency, are given in great detail. On the other hand, his two terms as Governor of California are more lightly sketched in (or are perhaps less memorable). A fine book, which should be better known.
Could there be such a thing a ‘Legal Laffer Curve’? What I mean is, a point where there are so many laws that the State cannot possibly enforce them and their agents start to wilt under the pressure of trying to do so. From then on the whole thing starts to go downhill and the lawlessness begins to grow uncontrollably.
Has that point been reached?
A chief Constable admitted yesterday that his officers are being forced to ignore thousands of burglaries, thefts and car crimes because they are swamped by increasing drug and gun violence.
The public’s perception that the police were not interested in low-level and non-violent crime was underlined when Steve Green, Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire police, said there was not enough money or officers available to investigate all crime.
The emergence of Britain’s drug and gun culture had impacted on his force to such an extent that “something had to give”.
A very telling admission from a man who is clearly under pressure. However my sympathy-meter is stuck at nought. The police have spent decades campaigning vigourously to abolish just about every right of the citizens to preserve their own security and, of course, the means to do so. The natural consequence is that they have arrogated that burden onto themselves and it is a burden the can neither cope with nor discharge. Truly that is a zero-sum game.
Yes, I think something will have to ‘give’ but knowing this country as I do, I doubt very much that it will be the pathology of total control that has caused the problem in the first place.
Another bracing dose of perspective from Victor Davis Hanson:
[A]fter September 11 we will either accept defeat and stay within our borders to fight a defensive war of hosing down fires, bulldozing rubble, arresting terrorist cells, and hoping to appease or buy off our enemies abroad — or we will eventually have to confront Syria, Lebanon’s Bekka Valley, Saudi Arabia, and Iran with a clear request to change and come over to civilization, or join the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.
[B]y any historical measure, what strikes students of this war so far in its first two years is the amazing degree to which the United States has hurt its enemies without incurring enormous casualties and costs.
As always with VDH, it pays to read the whole thing.
Over at the Adam Smith Institute’s Weblog, Madsen Pirie says:
There is another view which says that politics matters less these days. When the UK government provided houses and jobs for many of us, and ran the electricity, gas, oil and phone companies, together with steel, coal, ships and cars, it mattered who was in charge. With less coming from government and more from ourselves and the private sector, it is not as important. People tend to vote heavily in high tax countries such as Denmark, and less so in low tax countries such as the USA.
In other words, if politics (i.e. the scramble for the favour of the majority) becomes less important, voting goes down.
Many libertarians, notably Perry de Havilland of this blog, believe that the same idea in reverse is true – that by not voting we can reduce the politicisation of our lives. ‘Let them wither away to irrelevance,’ he says. I’m not so sure. It might be one of those nasty paradoxes such as the one whereby safety breeds lack of vigilance, which makes us less safe.
Perhaps the first to stop voting are those who have achieved relative independence, leaving disproportionate influence to those still at the trough. Have any studies been done on this? And does anyone know what percentage of those eligible to vote in, say, 1900 when the State was very weak, actually did so?
I don’t believe we picked up on this, from from silicon.com on the 1st of this month.
A “perfectly secure” electronic identity card will be in use in France by 2006, French Home Secretary Nicolas Sarkozy has announced. The card will carry a chip which will combine “the standard type of personal data you get in this type of document and an electronic certification system”. A digital authentication system with a public key infrastructure (PKI) will be used to guarantee the authenticity of the holder and ensure confidentiality.
But when it comes to whether the card will contain biometrics, Sarkozy said it is still too early to tell but underlined that the card is still in the project stage. For Sarkozy, the potential applications for the card are far clearer, however. Citizens will be able to use the card with central government, local authorities as well as businesses, he said.
This next paragraph makes this sound particularly nasty:
The minister also announced that “a strategic blueprint for electronic public services from 2003 to 2007” will be published in the coming weeks. “It’s no longer up to the citizens to come to e-government, it’s up to e-government go to them”, he said.
They’re coming to get you.
But the question of the protection of personal data hasn’t gone away …
No indeed.
In Defence of Global Capitalism
Johan Norberg
Cato Institute, 2003
Another welcome book in the Simon, Lomborg line, this time from Sweden, an auspicious sign. The Preface was reprinted in Liberty, where I first read it and where it makes a good summary of the argument of the book. In 1988 when the author was 16, his party – the Anarchists – got the largest percentage of votes, 25%, in the school mock-election, running an agin-the-government campaign. His position has changed somewhat – capitalism has difficulty working without a legal system and transparency in transactions – but is basically the same.
He starts by insisting that over the past three or four decades things have got better, particularly in the poorer “developing” countries. Income per capita has increased and mortality been reduced. This he ascribes to opening of the countries concerned to “the market”, both internal and external. He is, moreover, strongly against national barriers, not merely to trade, but also to migration, though here he doesn’t take into account our xenophobia. The case against tariffs is succinctly put by the quotation: “Either a branch of enterprise is profitable, in which case it deserves no tariff protection; or else it is unprofitable, in which case it deserves no tariff protection (p. 152).”
Although not explicitly against the EU as such, his analysis of its CAP agricultural subsidies and protectionism (pp. 148-) is damning, and it is even more shaming that so-called pro-Third World anti-globalisation protesters do not target them.
There is a separate chapter on “The African Morass” (p. 98-) where per capita GDP has actually decreased since the ’60s, though I think the statement that “The African countries have inherited a hierarchic, repressive political structure from the colonial powers” needs to be modified: what they did inherit, according to Bauer, was a late move to a command economy and a socialist intellectual outlook. The situation has been exacerbated by international aid, and debt cancellation would only be an encouragement of the behaviour that brought the bankruptcy about
The author refutes the prevalent belief that world inequality is growing, either between (p. 53) or within countries. He also points out that social mobility means that “the poor” are not the same people from one year to the next (p. 76). This, incidentally, is the factor most frequently, in fact always, omitted from discussions on poverty, whether absolute or relative; in fact, only 4% of the US population remain in the “poor” bracket (20%) for as long as two years, though some will remain longer.
Radley Balko has an article in Fox News today on a subject near and dear to my heart. Senator Fritz Hollings is at long last ending his dismal career.
This is the same Senator who in 1986 attempted a media grand stand play over the graves of the seven Challenger Astronauts. He is the luddite who can not deal with the modern world of technology and information and who wants us to return to a post-WWII world of backbreaking labour. He is the Senator who wants to make the internet safe for Disney and the RIAA.
For decades he has been the best Senator money can buy. I’m sure someone will miss him, but it certainly will not be me.
Speaking of medical privacy, time for a little light relief. The BBC reports that Philips has invented underwear that can monitor your vital signs and dial 999 in the event of a problem.
Apparently the hi-tech spy underwear can be washed and ironed as normal. Just be sure to take it off first.
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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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