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Despite recent cabinet setbacks, Big Blunkett is determined to introduce compulsory National Identity Cards for innocent British citizens. The BBC Reports that he intends the legislation to be announced in the next Queen’s speech. When pressed about whether they would be compulsory he said: “my own view is that the minimum is you can’t actually work, or draw on services unless you have the card” That sounds compulsory to me. Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe September 21st, 2003 | Comments are closed
 Alas, the drinks really are starting to run out now, in the UK’s socialist Wonderland. As the world price of crude has started dropping, because the UK and US Coalition Allies have finally got the Iraqi oil pumps flowing again, instead of passing any resultant economic benefit onto the British people, the UK Chancellor Gordon Brown is about to pass this benefit onto himself by raising UK petrol prices by up to five pence per gallon. A splendid back-door tax effort, I think you’ll agree. But one would’ve thought he’d learned his lesson during the UK Fuel Crisis, three years ago. However, our Gordon is wiser than we mere mortals. He thinks he can slip this tax rise in when the pump prices are dropping, thereby fooling we gullible British people into not noticing the difference ‘twixt cup and lip. But what happens, Gordon, when some unforeseen event pushes pump prices back up again? Will you reduce your tax-take? Or cut your spending? Or will you steel yourself for the UK Fuel Crisis Mark II? I really don’t think you have a clue. Because, idiotarian though you are, you’re a highly intelligent man. And you know if you allowed this price cut to be passed onto the British private sector, instead of keeping it to pay for all your new lesbian nicotine-awareness counsellors, it would stimulate economic growth and increase your long-term tax-take. But you don’t care about the long-term tax-take, do you Gordon? When the British economy is heading over a waterfall, as you recently told the Cabinet, let’s just get that oar in the water and start paddling as hard and as fast as we can. The long-term future will just have to take care of itself. And it will, Gordon. It will. Let’s just hope that you and your kind aren’t in it. September 21st, 2003 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
There are times (rare, it must be said) when I feel a pang of sympathy for our politicians. Well, no, perhaps ‘sympathy’ is too strong a word. Let’s just say that I do occasionally recognise the thorniness of the predicaments in which they find themselves. Such as this one:
So what’s the problem? Just lower the taxes, right? Ah, well if only it was as easy as that. See the politicians realise that onerous taxes are making them unpopular but the only way to reduce that burden is to slash public spending and that will make them equally (if not more) unpopular. What’s a government minister to do? Truly this is almost a picture perfect snapshot of a schitzoid nation. The common folk are always grumbling menacingly about the taxes they are forced to pay but at the same time they are not prepared to entertain even a suggestion of a reduction in the size of government (national or local) nor any diminution in the level of state largesse which they demand with an unquenchable vigour. Oft-times this infected body politic breaks out in pustules that send the political classes scurrying around to find a less tender part of the body onto which to shift the burden. I suppose that method of treatment has a limited shelf-life. It is slightly worrying that even after the Thatcher years there still seems to be no clear understanding that state activism comes at a high price. The British people appear to want low taxes and big government without appreciating that they cannot possibly have both. Until such time that sufficient numbers of them have settled on which one they want, these techtonic plates of expectation are going to continue grinding against each other, leading to frequent tremors and occasional quakes. [Note to non-UK readers: ‘Council taxes’ are property-based taxes collected and spent at local level.] September 21st, 2003 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
I would love to open a current account with the World Bank. Imagine having those portentious words printed all over your cheques. I wonder what rate of interest they would give me on my savings? Do they do mortgages? How about financial planning? I would truly be tempted to make such enquiries were it not the fact that the ‘World Bank’ seem to regard themselves as being way above all that kind of vulgar, selfish, money-grubbing. Much better to channel their energies into pious waffle:
Poverty is indeed a curse but it is a curse that can be so easily banished by the application of capitalism and property rights. Embrace those two pillars of civilisation and good education and healthcare will follow as naturally as night follows day. One would have thought that, being ‘bankers’ and all, the paladins of the World Bank would know that. If they do, they are keeping it very quiet. I wonder why? And I also wonder why they appear to be so obsessed with tradeable services such as education and healthcare? Is that because their true constituents are the Western bureaucrats who hold a monopoly control over just those services? I don’t suppose they would be at all interested in expanding their empires? No, of course not. Heaven forfend. I don’t think that the World Bank is interested in offering me a savings account. Nor are they interested in ending world poverty. Not when the wealth and status of the privileged class they belong to is sustained on the back of it. September 21st, 2003 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Given the trademark timorousness of the British Conservative Party, I must grudgingly concede that this is something of a brave pronouncement by their standards:
Why ‘halved’? Who does that help? What does that achieve? Why not scrap the iniquitous television tax altogether? ‘Half’ indeed. Pah! Presumably they don’t feel quite bold enough to go the whole hog. I see an upside and a downside here. The upside is that I think this is the first time that the BBC’s looting rights have been publicly challenged in the mainstream. That’s a start. But it is only a start. The downside is that the Conservatives cannot be entirely trusted to see through even this lily-livered compromise. All it takes is a Guardian op-ed denouncing them as rabid fascists for them to drop the idea like a hot brick and run away. Even if that were not the case, the Conservatives actually have to be back in power in order to effect their semi-decent idea and the prospects of that happening are looking dimmer by the day. ‘Auntie’ is still a long way from threatened. September 21st, 2003 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
Colour me cynical (it suits me to a tee) but my opinion of the capabilities and ethics of the British public sector has sunk so low, that I am now inclined to regard their frequent pronouncements as a sort of inverse benchmark. So when the Food Standards Agency issues an official warning about the allged perils of the Atkins Diet, my instincts tell me to draw the very opposite conclusion:
Surely ‘obesity’ is the one thing that devotees of the late Dr.Atkins claim to have conquered? And that word ‘linked’ again. It is fast developing a reputation as quite the most manipulative term in the English language. By employing the word ‘linked’ in any sort of press release one can convey a sense of ominous threat without the bothersome necessity of explaining precise details or producing so much as one iota of empirical evidence. I am not sufficiently familiar with these people to question their motives but their methods alone are sufficient to leave me with the firm impression that the Atkins diet is not only healthy but also very effective. Get guzzling that protein. September 21st, 2003 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Despite the most draconian anti-gun laws in the known universe, the British police are having to resort to enlisting the help of musicians in an attempt to curb gun crime:
What’s all this nonsense about ‘escalating gun culture’? How can that be? Isn’t that something Americans are forced to endure but we Brits are mercifully free of? Priceless. September 21st, 2003 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
In response to my posting below about Sean Gabb’s radio interview with Tony Martin, a couple of commenters from the USA have inquired as how they may make a contribution to Mr.Martin’s legal defence fund. Allow me to assist. Mr.Martin has a support group with a website which, I believe, has details of how to contribute to his civil defence fund. September 21st, 2003 | Comments are closed
A couple of weeks ago I made a brief visit to Germany. As detailed on my personal blog, I at one point looked sadly across the river Oder, unhappy that I could not walk across the bridge into Poland, but unable to do so due to the requirement that people travelling on Australian passports (such as myself) require a visa to enter Poland. There is no good reason for preventing Australians from entering Poland without a visa – we don’t actually pose any kind of threat to their country – at least certainly not any more than Britons, Americans, or Frenchmen (all of who do not require visas), but none the less we are required to get them. Thus we enter the weird world of visa requirements, which has a lot to do with ridiculous bureaucracy, governments that are on the take, and wounded national pride, but very little to do with actual common sense and little to do with governments acting in ways that would most benefit their citizens. (I am here only discussing visa requirements for tourism and other short visits. The issues that come into play for longer and working visits are something I could write a book on, so I will ignore them for now). In terms of immigration the world can normally be divided into two groups of countries: rich and poor. “Rich” consists of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the EU and other countries in Europe that either could have joined the EU but haven’t (ie Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland) or are too small to do so (Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Liechtenstein, etc), Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. “Poor” is everyone else. (There are a few countries in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe (for instance Malaysia, Chile, and Hungary) that have almost but not quite made it into “rich”, and heaven knows how you categorise South Africa). If you come from a poor country, you generally need a visa to visit any other country, although sometimes exceptions are made for countries adjacent to where you live. If people are going backwards and forwards over a border all day long, bureaucratic obstacles become truly idiotic, and are sometimes removed. (Sometimes they are not. However, in the case I was dealing with – Poles visiting Germany – they have been removed). Generally, though, rich countries want to check out visitors from poor countries before they come. That’s tough. Travelling on a poor country passport is a nuisance. On the other hand, if you have a passport from a “rich” country there is generally no good reason to stop you from travelling anywhere. Nobody actually wants to check you out. But, sometimes the government of the country you visit will require a visa of you anyway. There are two reasons for this. National pride, and simple extortion. → Continue reading: The weird and idiotic world of national visa requirements September 20th, 2003 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
— Former UN weapons inspector Richard Butler, via Glenn, to whom Samizdata remains loyal. September 20th, 2003 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
In the two and a half years since George W. Bush took office, 2.7 million Americans have lost their jobs. The vast majority (2.5 million) have occurred in manufacturing, prompting the President to announce a bold, innovative new program to boost manufacturing employment. He’s going to – drum roll, please – appoint a manufacturing czar [the proposed formal title: Assistant Commerce Secretary for Manufacturing and Services]. It’s a classic political move. If a president wants to make it look like he’s doing something, but has no idea what to do, he appoints a ‘czar’. However, a ‘Manufacturing Czar’ will do nothing to help the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs. President Nixon started the trend in 1973 by appointing John Love as Energy Czar. Of course, his appointment did nothing to help solve the energy “crisis”, leading President Carter to up the ante and create the Department of Energy. That didn’t accomplish anything either, other than create a gigantic new bureaucracy. Since then, we’ve been blessed with Drug Czars, Heath Care Czars, Aids Czars, and Privacy Czars, to name just a few. President Clinton even appointed a ‘Counter-Intelligence Czar’ just before he left office, charged with developing:
We saw how well that worked on September 11, 2001. → Continue reading: Wishing upon a Czar September 20th, 2003 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
FEE reports President Bush’s steel tariff has had the unintended consequences most of us expected. According to the Washington post article Steel Tariffs Are a Net Job Killer, 9/19/03:
It’s not just those uppity complaining fur’ners the EU is starving who get hurt. Protective tariffs harm everyone. September 20th, 2003 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
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