That really showed me
Britain
has a Minister for Europe, Chris Bryant MP
.
I’m delighted to have been singled out by him in a speech he made yesterday to lefty organisation Progress.
Chris attacks me for wanting to give the people an in / out EU referendum.
Yes, Chris, indeed I do.
Like you, Chris, I stood for election on a manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on the European Constitution / Lisbon Treaty.
Unlike you, I kept my word.
Chris accuses me of wanting to give the people the final say over our Europe policy - rather than just politicians like him and me. Yep. Guilty as charged.
Posted on 10 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Recovery requires lower taxes, less regulation
Normally, a fall in the value of the £ would mean exports increase relative to imports. Latest figures, however, suggest that hasn't happened.
Sterling
fell - and exports decreased compared to imports.
Perhaps after decades of high taxation and invasive regulation, it's getting pretty tough for our businesses to actually produce things folk would want to buy in an open world market.
Our wealth creators now need permission from an army of officials - funded out of the taxes they have to pay - just to go about their business.
And so guess what? There's now less wealth being created.
Posted on 10 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Jack Straw defending Westminster old guard
Jack Straw is a one of Westminster's great political survivors. Part of this, I’m certain is down to the fact that he’s actually rather a polite and decent man.
He's been in the Cabinet for over a decade, and held many big ministerial jobs. A feather for each wind that blows, he was Blairite when it paid to be Blairite. Now he works for Gordon Brown.
Yet he seems to have worked himself up in to an uncharactistic flap this evening over David Cameron's plans to reduce the number of MPs by 10 percent.
In a speech to the Hansard society, Straw apparently says cutting the number of politicians would be "dangerous, destructive and anti-democratic".
Tell that to the voters, Jack.
There are too many MPs sitting in a supine, spineless House of Commons. We need fewer of them. Those that remain should do their job of holding government to account, not sucking up to it. To ensure that they keep their promises, we need direct democracy, including open primaries and popular initiative. Then, at last, our MPs might be properly accountable to the folk they're supposed to serve.
Establishment figures like Jack Straw might not like it, but it’s time for change in Westminster.
Posted on 9 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
From Baker to Balls
Four former Education Ministers appeared before the education select committee yesterday; Ken Baker, David Blunkett, Estelle Morris and Charles Clarke.
At last I understand why we have the education system that we have. For decades, each new set of politicians thinks they know what needs to be done. Few stop to ask if it is really right for people in SW1 to impose these decisions in the first place.
The case for having a state-run curriculum and testing was never really made. There was an assertion made that a curriculum was needed to help children move from school to school - and that politicians needed to have "levers to pull".
There was an assumption that if something has to be nation-wide, it must be run by government.
Lord Baker told me that officials in Washington used to bemoan the fact that the United States never had a national curriculum set in Washington. While a French Minister, on the other hand, personally dictated the content of the French one.
"Indeed" I replied. "And one country invented the internet and the other didn’t."
Posted on 9 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Why defence inflation is sky high
"The MoD faces a higher rate of inflation than other organisations because the prices of the goods and services it buys increase very quickly" writes James Kirkup in the Telegraph. That might superficially tell us why the defence budget is under pressure, but it explains very little.
Why is it that "the prices of the goods and services MoD buys" increases so quickly?
Inflation happens, it is often said, when too much money is chasing too few goods and services. However, we know that there's certainly not too much money in the defence budget. On the contrary, there's way too little.
So what about there being too few goods and services?
"Defence inflation" is caused by deliberate constraints on the supply of goods and services. It's government policy to favour certain contractors, and to prevent other businesses being able to supply goods and services more cheaply.
And guess what? Without competition, some contractors are able to bump up prices. Worse, the budget is poorly allocated. For example, it has been suggested by some that helicopters that could be bought for less than £10 million are purchased for over £20 million.
There'd be far less "defence inflation" if we spent the defence budget more wisely. Incidentally, our armed forces might then be able to get the kit they need, rather than what politicians and big business decide they should have.
Posted on 9 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Where did all the money go?...
... Asks Icelandic film director Gunnar Sigurdsson. Never likely to win an Oscar, this short film - Maybe I should have – possess a question that needs to be taken rather more seriously than any Hollywood jamboree.
For most of the past decade, banks seemed to be rolling in money. Now, as any small business looking for a loan can tell you, there's much less.
Why?
Because a lot of what we thought was money was really credit. What they call “fractional reserve banking” means that a lot of the liquidity in our economy is really a loan piled upon a loan. Piled upon on loan. Upon a loan. And so on. This credit pyramid dwarfed real money by more than 30 times at the time of the crunch.
So much for monetarist economists controlling the money supply. Most of the time they can't even calculate it, let alone control it.
Once the credit bubble unravels, as it always does, what seemed like money disappears into thin air. Worse, it takes real money, put aside by real savers and hard working folk, with it.
If bogus money is the problem, what is the solution?
The one thing that won't get us out of this monetary mess - in Iceland or anyplace else - is yet more thin-air money. That's what got us into it.
Yet money-out-of-nothing is precisely the Bank of England's remedy. Rather than solve the problem caused by the disappearance of bogus money, printing more money and pumping in more credit will just wreck the worth of what sound money still remains.
Perhaps our central bankers actually want to destroy the purchasing power of the pound? What other plans does the British state have to meet it's obligations to existing bond holders, future pensioners and bloated statism?
Posted on 8 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
TV documentaries
Three times in as many months I've been invited to take part in documentaries about David Cameron.
"... So you can talk about how you worked with him on policy before the last election .... blah blah ...".
And three times I said a polite "no".
Posted on 7 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
EU Referendum Bill
Fresh from their victory over the Lisbon Treaty EU Constitution, I see that the Brussels elites now push for an EU public prosecutor and for a new EU tax.
So much for the idea that the EU is somehow "moving our way".
It doesn't have to be this way.
My Private Members Bill - read it here - puts on the Parliamentary agenda the possibility of an in / out referendum for the first time.
The Euro elite want you to think that there is no alternative to our current relations with Brussels. They want you to believe it is both desirable and inevitable that we surrender our democracy to supranational technocrats; that our EU entanglements are irreversible.
But change is possible.
Help me use the wisdom of the crowd to review this Bill. Let me know if you approve of it. Please pass on the link to it, debate it and make suggested amendments ....
Posted on 6 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Crunchy conservatism
I've already put the shallots and the rhubarb in. In doors, the fruit cuttings (boysenberry, gooseberry, josterberry, plus a something-or-other berry) are coming on nicely - a bit of leaf emerging.
I bought loads of seeds off Alan Romans this year. They're sitting in the seed tin, but I'm itching to start sowing. Is it still a bit early, unless indoors or in a cold frame?
Tips and suggestions please ....
Posted on 5 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Thought for the day
"Whenever loans were systematically made up from demand deposits, the historical constant in banking appears to be eventual failure". Thus writes Jesus De Soto on page 69 of Money, Credit and Economic Cycles.
And he wrote that over a decade before our own financial crisis.
Posted on 5 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell