Children's Commissar must go
Maggie Atkinson, the Children’s Commissioner, wants the age of criminal responsibility to be raised from ten to twelve.
Is this the same Maggie Atkinson that was overwhelmingly rejected for the role of Children’s Commissioner, when she appeared before the Commons select committee on which I sit?
Is she the same Ms Atkinson who was appointed to the £130,000-or-so role all the same? Appointed despite Gordon Brown saying that there needed to pre-appointment confirmation hearing for precisely such roles?
There are arguments for and against raising the age of criminal responsibility. There is no case whatsoever for having the decision shaped by unaccountable, anti-democratic quangocrats like Ms Atkinson.
The Children’s Commissioners role is to be the independent voice of children and to speak up in their interests. I have yet to hear Ms Atkinson explain how children’s interests would be protected by not prosecuting those who murder children.
She has zero democratic mandate. In a democracy, she must have no role determining public policy.
Posted on 14 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
A rightwing Jon Cruddas?
Olly Deed of LabourList describes me as a rightwing Jon Cruddas in an interview about the impact of the internet on politics and government.
I think it's meant as a compliment - to me, but not perhaps Mr Cruddas.
I met Olly after speaking at a Fabian conference, and he has some interesting insights on the subject himself.
I really do wonder how it is that the British Left, which once stood for the dispersal of power and against remote elites, has ended up on the side of remote officials, quangos, human rights lawyers and Eurocrats. Not exactly true to the spirit of the Levellers or the Chartists, is it?
Posted on 13 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Lost in translation
Back in December 2007, Home Office Local Government minister Hazel Blears urged councils to spend less on translation. In February 2008, she said learning English must be an "absolute priority" for migrants to the UK.
Yet in 2008-09, the Home Office spent £67.9 million on translation.
Either ministers aren't in control of their own bureaucracies. Or they take us for fools. Or both.
You can't trust a word this government says.
Posted on 12 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Drafting the manifesto
Regular readers will know that I do rather like to contribute when it comes to policy suggestions.
I'm therefore especially pleased to have been allowed to write a section of the manifesto. The Spectator magazine manifesto, that is.
It's inside this week's issue of the Spectator - on sale for a mere £1.95.
I
n case anyone happens to be a bit short of big ideas to fix broken Britain, they'll find plenty in there.
My own section explains precisely what an incoming government could do to get Parliament off its knees, restore purpose to politics, make MPs answer to the people they're supposed to serve - and help cut the deficit.
All in five easy steps - which could be undertaken before the summer recess.
Posted on 11 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
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