Cameron's plan
It's uncanny. Every time David Cameron starts reading from The Plan, sales pick up.
This morning, he almost seemed to quote from it, saying "we will push power down not just from the government to Parliament but from Whitehall to communities; from the state to citizens; from Brussels to Britain; from judges to the people; from bureaucracy to democracy.”
He then goes on to outline ideas we first mooted, such as popular initiative, opening up politics, recall, localism, referendums and proposals to clean up Westminster.
I then take a glance at on-line sales, and see they've spiked upwards once again.
Posted on 8 February 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Lobbying - the next big scandal?
David Cameron warned today that corporate lobbying in Parliament was "the next big scandal waiting to happen" [hattip Paul Waugh].
I agree.
On August 13th last year, I wrote in PR Week of my "hunch that sooner or later we'll see a big Westminster story about the way that some lobbyists seek to buy influence." I went on the mention "the revolving door between Whitehall and business" specifically.
The digital revolution smashes hierarchy, opening up the cosy Commons to scrutiny. It is about to do the same to the world of back-room deals cut between big government and big corporations, of corporatist conspiracies against the taxpayer.
Posted on 8 February 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Revolting SW1
When an opposition spokesman, Damian Green, exposed the government's incompetence over immigration, he was arrested. If ever Parliamentary privilege, as set out in the 1689 Bill of Rights should apply, surely it ought to have protected Green from an overbearing, bullying executive?
As we all know, those running our rotten, indolent Commons lacked the character to ensure that members of the legislature could do their job unhindered.
Now we see Parliamentary privilege apparently invoked by MPs seeking immunity from corruption charges.
It is not just the government we need to change. We must transform the way we are governed.
The need to make government accountable to Parliament, and Parliament answer to the people, has become urgent …..
Posted on 8 February 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Speaking in Norfolk
I was the after dinner entertainment at South West Norfolk Conservative Association last night. Liz Truss is our brilliant candidate there, and she will make a great MP.
My talk was not about all that is wrong with the country (I thought that would merely depress). Rather I talked about what we must do to fix it.
Posted on 6 February 2010 by Douglas Carswell
The Left is bankrupt
It's not just the nation's coffers they've laid bare. The current generation of Labour leaders are in danger of leaving their own party intellectually bankrupt.
To get a sense of how dire things are, have a read of Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander's article "We will defend the State" in today's Guardian.
Miliband and Alexander make the interesting observation that "as constituency MPs, we see people facing daily frustrations in their interactions with government: disempowered not empowered."
Indeed. You'd have to be a pretty dim-witted MP from a one-party fiefdom constituency to think otherwise.
In the real world beyond the SW1 fantasy-land, government is not some kind of enabling, empowering force for good. It is petty, officious, restrictive, bossy - and, above all, incompetent.
But what do Brown's back room boys propose to do about it? Miliband and Alexander talk about "strengthening the power of people in their interaction with the state". But to do so, they then propose more government.
Instead of allowing local or individual initiative, their remedies are all about official initiative. Rather than letting go, or allowing choice and competition, or an end to state monopoly, they simply offer to ratchet up the levers of state control; more Whitehall diktat, more national standards and decrees, more we-know-what's-best-for-you. They write of "neighbourhood policing" in the full knowledge that their own government specifically ruled out direct, local democratic oversight of policing.
That people like Miliband and Alexander can identify the problem, yet not offer a credible solution is beginning to trouble some of the more honest thinkers on the left - as I discovered speaking at a Fabian conference the other week.
The more perceptive on the left recognise that our ipod society is used to choice in a way no previous generation has been. They realise that the internet - which creates enormous choice, new niches and breaks monopolies - will shift the relationship between the individual and the state. Or put another way, if Spotify allows us complete choice over the music we listen to, why can we not have choice over even more important things, like how our children are educated?
Miliband and Alexander are analogue thinkers in a digital age.
Posted on 5 February 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Energy crisis and BBC bias
Last night's 10 O'clock News saw another classic illustration of BBC bias.
Reporting on the looming energy crisis Britain faces, the BBC kept referring to the "failure of the markets" to provide energy. The idea that we are not producing enough energy because of "the markets" is absurd.
The energy sector is one of the most heavily regulated parts of our economy. Energy producers need the permission of officials at almost every turn. Suppliers are unable to supply enough energy precisely because of the rules that force them to shut down power plant, purchase renewables, and jump through all manner of regulatory hurdles.
At no point did the BBC mention that one of the reasons energy bills are rising is because householders are being forced to pay hidden levies - which are then put on to the balance sheets of big corporations.
It is not the free market that is failing to supply us with energy, but a corporatist con trick.
The BBC invited a comment from the regulator OFGEM - who called for more regulation. The BBC invited comment from a government minister - who called for more government. At no point did the BBC consider the view that perhaps it is the regulator and the government that have got us into the sorry mess - and they are the last people we should be depending on to get us out of it.
Listening to the BBC presenter last night, I was reminded of how the BBC covered the Stern Report on climate change. Opinion reported as fact. Assertions made without caveats. No opposing view or doubt allowed. The BBC seems to have learnt nothing from its blanket failure to ask the right questions about global warming.
No doubt the producer of last night's BBC News is unaware that they were even being biased. That is what is so disturbing.
Posted on 4 February 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Fraser Nelson gives the Keith Joseph lecture
Just been listening to Fraser Nelson giving the Keith Joseph memorial lecture.
He said that the choice in government is between radicalism and failure. Interestingly, he sees the great tide of anti-politics as an opportunity for the Conservatives. If we're prepared to be bold ....
Posted on 3 February 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Defence debate is bankrupt
Just listened to Defence Minister, Bob Ainsworth, outline plans for the Strategic Defence Review.
It's all very well, but unless government is prepared to ask why we're spending £27 million on a helicopter we could have had for £8 million, we will only experience defeat and retreat.
Until we scrap the protectionist scam at the heart of the defence acquisition process, it will always be a question of what to cut and where the axe should fall. Proposals for 10-year spending cycles and partnerships etc merely blur the lines between customer and supplier, which we should in fact be reinforcing.
The price of defence protectionism is that our armed forces can do less. It is depressing that so few of those who fancy themselves as "experts" in the field are unable to see it.
UK defence suffers not just from a bankrupt Treasury, but a poverty of ideas amongst SW1 people who ought to provide leadership.
Having to do defence deals with the French is the price we pay for defence protectionism.
Posted on 3 February 2010 by Douglas Carswell
More defence doh!
Apparently Sikorsky is about to launch a pilotless version of the Black Hawk helicopter.
Do you suppose the Future Lynx helicopters, which we're buying for £27 million each, will ever be able to do that?
Defence protectionism means missing out on such innovation.
It's always the same pattern; bogus arguments about sovereign supply mean we try building it ourselves (see Blowpipe, SA80, Phoenix et al). We do so at vastly inflated cost, and being in a technological cul de sac, miss out on innovative refinements.
Then we end up buying off the peg, but at tailor-made prices.
Doh.
Posted on 3 February 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Internet and money
On a recent trip back to Uganda, I was fascinated to see that almost everyone has a mobile phone. When I was growing up in Kampala twenty years ago, there weren't even many landlines.
Technology hasn't merely democratised communication, it has given almost every Ugandan a system of instant, electronic banking. One of the great, unforeseen consequences of mass mobile phone ownership has been the evolution of a system of mobile phone-based banking. By transferring mobile phone credits from phone to phone, Ugandans are able to pay for things securely, and bank in a way that was previously impossible.
It got me thinking....
What if one day a mobile phone company in such a country was to start selling phone credits that were decoupled from the value of the local currency? Rather than having X number of shillings worth of credits on your mobile, you would have a certain number of credits - which could be worth one amount one day, and a different amount another day.
If there was also inflation (the shilling losing value), folk would pretty soon transfer their wealth into phone credits. Bingo! You would have not merely micro electronic banking, but in effect a private currency operating alongside the "official" unit of exchange.
My bet is that this is going to happen someplace pretty soon. Technology hasn't merely smashed the state monopoly on providing telecommunications. It could break the state monopoly on currency.
What about Britain? What if in a few years time most Britons did their grocery shopping on-line? What if we each had an account with, say Tescos or Morrisons or Lidl, denominated not just in £ sterling, but in the supermarket's own system of credits - similar to mobile phone credits.
If inflation was to pick up, and a household knew that they had to spend a certain sum on groceries that year, it is not impossible that folk would buy supermarket credits, and spend them over the course of the year. They would be more likely to retain value. Would that not also be a system of private currency?
What if you could transfer your holding of supermarket credits over to someone else, in payment not just for supermarket bake beans, but for anything you like?
Fantasy? Not as fantastic as the idea of mobile phones seemed in Uganda two decades ago. As governments debauch the currency, I suspect that we will see the evolution of new, non-state controlled means of exchange.
Posted on 2 February 2010 by Douglas Carswell