Saving Titian for the nation
Like me, perhaps you are vaguely aware that there is a campaign underway to try to save two paintings by Titian "for the nation".
Apparently, unless we stump up £100 million, the paintings may move overseas.
I'm no art buff, having struggled through Gombrich's Story of Art, and come out little wiser. But I do like the idea that great works of art are kept in the UK. Good public galleries and libraries are vital for our civic society.
Yet what do we actually mean by saving these paintings for the nation?
These two paintings have been on public display in the National Gallery of Scotland since 1945. They are owned by the Duke of Sutherland.
Saving them for the nation seems to involve giving the Duke £100 million. The money will apparently come from the national lottery and public purse. In return, the paintings will continue to be on public display. Hummmm ....
I'm all in favour of the Duke being able to sell his paintings, if he wants. I'm all in favour of various UK galleries buying them for public display. I'm even in favour of tilting the rules to advantage UK purchasers over foreign ones.
But I am not so keen on the idea that "saving paintings for the nation" should mean giving large amounts of public money or lottery money to select individuals.
I can see that the Duke might find this an attractive deal. But is this what the national lottery should be doing?
By all means let's raise that £100 million, but lets do it through voluntary public subscription.
I'm probably not interested enough to ever go and look at these paintings, but - if asked - I'll happily donate £50 so that others can. If the nation wants these paintings saved, let's ask the nation directly. Let's not raid the lottery.
Posted on 31 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Who judges the judges?
The Times has an interesting article about the Court of Appeal finding that judges give out “unduly lenient” sentences. Apparently some judges have been rather soft on some pretty nasty criminals.
This raises the question who should be judging the judges?
Surely there is case for making judicial appointments more democratically accountable. There was once a time when establishment opinion felt that it was best not to pick law-makers democratically - since this would lead to mob rule. That is clearly nonsense.
So what have we to fear from democratising judicial appointments? Better judges? A criminal justice system that actually works?
Posted on 30 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
BBC coverage of the US election is biased
As a proud ObamaCon - Barack Obama supporting Conservative - I was impressed with his Denver speech.
But I was taken aback at the extraordinarly fawning, biased coverage on the BBC yesterday. As someone who would prefer Obama to win the election, I was nonetheless appalled at the pro-Democrat slant to the BBC coverage.
McCain's decision to appoint Palin was discussed in the context of it having been a mistake or a gamble. There was little attempt to critically assess Obama from an intelligent small-State perspective (For example, his promise to cut tax?)
Yet again, the BBC shows itself incapable of reporting almost any event from a small-State, centre right perspective.
Whoever the Americans have in the White House, on this side of the Atlantic, sooner or later that BBC license fee has to go ....
Posted on 30 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Cyber Blimp
An angry email remonstrates with me over my postings on defence.
"Those carriers will give us a unique capability". Indeed. We'll be the first navy in history to have aircraft carriers with no aircraft. And no high tech kit on board to protect them. And no support ships to do likewise. But, hey, they'll be British built - like the Titanic.
"If only you committed to spending an extra £10 billion on defence". I wish it was in my gift, but I doubt hosing more money at BAE Systems or VT alone would help our armed forces much. For the same reason Labour's extra money for schools and hospitals has not raised performance enough, more money for defence requires reform.
"we need appropriate sovereignty of supply". You mean like we have over the supply of food? When was the last time we fought a war in which we were entirely self-sufficient for arms supply and munitions? The Wars of the Roses?
"Typhoon is first class". Sure it is. And probably lots of fun to fly. But having (or, more accurately, one day getting) lots of Eurofighters, means not having the sort of weapons we could do with right now.
Don't get angry about this. Recognise that what suits the contractors is not the same thing as helping our armed forces.
Posted on 30 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Indecision time on defence
Rather like the economy, after a decade of Labour, defence policy is in a mess. Indecision and a lack of clarity envelop the MoD.
Today, defence industry big-wig, Ian Godden, urged government to make some decisions. He urged ministers to commit to Defence Industrial Strategy mark 2 – and warned of drastic consequences if they don’t.
We do need decisions. But not the one Mr Godden is lobbying for.
Rather than commit to more of the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS), we need to scrap it.
DIS means we spend our defence budget in the interests of a handful of defence contractors – rather than the armed forces. The purpose of our defence budget should not be to transfer large sums of public money onto the balance sheet of a few contractors, but to equip our armed forces with what they need.
We need an entirely new, bold and coherent approach to defence policy.
First, we need to work out the kind of wars we are likely to fight, given our foreign policy. The document that purports to do this is called the Defence Strategic Guidance (yes, it is part intelligent guesswork, but that's better than what happens currently).
Then, having agreed to the Defence Strategic Guidance, we should use its assumptions to work out how we spend our finite budget. That should normally be done by buying the best kit available in the world.
Why doesn’t this happen already?
Perhaps because there’s not much in the Defence Strategic Guidance to justify spending Billions on the two new carriers or on Eurofighter. And perhaps there are some people in Westminster and Whitehall who’d rather not hear that.
Posted on 29 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Reagan remembered ; Schröder best forgotten
News Russia might switch off the oil pipelines to western Europe made me think of something Ronald Reagan once said. Twenty years back, he warned Germany and others against allowing themselves to become dependent on Russian energy pipelines.
Reagan was a great man.
Meanwhile, former German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, who seems to be a lobbyist for Russian energy giant Gazprom, has urged Germany to become even more dependent on Russian energy supplies. Less said about mediocre man Schröder the better.
Posted on 29 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
How can we improve immigration policy?
Following on from my earlier entry about the immigration debate, its only fair that I highlight a piece in today's Telegraph by Robert Whelan.
He writes that we have had "virtually uncontrolled mass immigration ... since 1997". He then goes on to say that we have begun "to appreciate the extent to which the survival of the free society can be threatened by the presence within it of large number of people who do not share its most basic assumptions. It is now becoming acceptable to say that not all immigrant groups behave in the same way".
Please don't jump on me or hurl angry emails this way. I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with what Mr Whelan thinks. (If it was entirely up to me, I'd opt for the firm but fair immigration system they have in Australia. Its inclusive, rational, and accountable).
Rather, I simply want to ask this; if we do decide, calmly and democratically, that we do need some sensible changes made to our immigration policy to reflect changing circumstances, how might we do so when so many aspects of immigration and asylum policy are determined by unelected human rights judges and supranational conventions entered into without proper accountability?
Can we achieve the sort of immigration policy that we might decide that we may need, and remain within the various international conventions we are bound by, and with all those activist judges frustrating successive Home Secretaries?
I'm sure that some people think we can. But how about those of us who aren't human rights lawyers or lobbyists?
Posted on 28 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
We do not need a national curriculum
As long as there is a State-run curriculum in our schools, there is always going to be a debate over what to include in it.
Yesterday, a roll call of politicians was demanding that the State-run curriculum should include sex lessons for five years olds. Today, we learn that "Black History" will be compulsory in every school for the first time.
I've no doubt that there are some perfectly well-intentioned reasons for wanting to teach both these things. However, I can't understand why it is that we should leave it to government to make the decision for us.
Every time we shop in a supermarket, or buy a car, or choose a home, we are making choices for ourselves about what we feel is best for us. We recognise that by doing it that way, we are more likely to end up with the food, car or house that we actually prefer. Imagine how dreadful it would be if government officials allocated us our food, clothes and the rest...
Yet that is precisely what we have with the State-run national curriculum.
The Tories brought in the State-run curriculum foolishly imagining it would stop children being taught politically-correct nonsense. Instead, it has given control over our children's education to the sort of Whitehall buffoons who daily lose confidential data - and worse.
Perhaps, you think, we need some sort of government oversight over the education curriculum or else every child would end up being taught all sorts of different things, and there would be chaos. Reflect on this; there is no government oversight over the publication of children's books. Yet JK Rowling, BFG and Spot the Dog are commonly read in households up and down the land.
Posted on 27 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
The problem is the defence contractors
According to James Kirkup writing in the Telegraph, the military don't want Defence Minister Des Browne replaced by John Hutton because "Hutton is seen .... as being too close to the defence industry contractors who are unpopular with many service personnel".
At last, the irrefutable truth is starting to emerge; Defence procurement policy is run in the interests of the big defence contractors - not our armed forces. Billions are spent on the kit that the big contractors want to supply, rather than on the things that our armed forces need.
Where, for example, in the Defence Strategic Guidance are there planning assumptions or scenarios that call for two new carriers, or the air-to-air capability of the Eurofighter?
There is little in the current draft Defence Strategic Guidance to justify either project in its current form. Yet the big contractors want them - and so we build them. At vastly inflated cost. And our troops in Afghanistan have to make do without the kit that they need as a consequence.
It seems that the real military - in otherwords not MoD officials - is starting to realise that the way we spend our defence budget needs to change. We need a minister willing to put the suppliers in their place - and axe the Defence Industrial Strategy.
Defence procurement needs to be based on the Defence Strategic Guidance - not on what big corporations can lobby for.
Posted on 27 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Immigration: the left is losing the argument
On the Today programme this morning, I heard the sound of the left trying desperately to counter attack over immigration.
The left-wing Institute of Public Policy Research has issued a report that claims we have all "underestimated the economic benefits that migrants bring to local economies". Hummmm ....
Until a few years ago, such stuff was orthodoxy. We were being constantly told that large-scale immigration was good for the economy. Indeed, there were articles in the Economist and the Financial Times saying as much - so it must have all been true.
Then along came the brilliant Sir Andrew Green. In the teeth of real nastiness (Deborah Ross writing in the Spectator, March 2004), he challenged the accepted (acceptable?) orthodoxy.
Setting up
Migration Watch
, he has effectively refuted a number of leftist lies.
We are still light years away from having the sort of accountable immigration system that we need. But thanks to Sir Andrew, the unquestioned assumptions about immigration we had been forced to accept no longer go unchallenged.
It was a delight to listen to Sir Andrew Green. As I did so though, I couldn't help wondering about the Today programme. With it
sounding ever more like a radio broadcast of the Guardian, surely its time to question who actually gets to decide what items feature on it and how they are covered? If it’s meant to be part of public services broadcasting, where is the accountability to the public?
Posted on 26 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Three cheers for Andrew Adonis!
I don't normally praise government ministers. The idea that I might have anything positive to say about the current government rabble will amuse many of my constituents.
However, when a minister does something that's right for Britain, it's time to bite my lip and say so; well done to Labour minister, Andrew Adonis.
Back in January, Adonis wrote that this "September we will open nearly 50 new academies". Now apparently, he wants to massively expand the programme.
Adonis' academy programme means turning lots of State-run schools into independent schools. They'll be "akin to private schools" to use his precise words, funded by government rather than school fees, but allowed to run their own affairs (more or less).
Of course some criticisms can be made; Why aren't academies even more independent? How come it took Adonis so long to only achieve so little? How come Brown blocked the academy agenda before he was PM, yet now backs it?
All true. But the greater truth is that free from the deadhand of the State, academies are doing much, much better than they would had they not been set free. As a member of the Schools select committee in Parliament, I think the evidence is compelling.
Imagine if every school in Britain was set free? What if every child, no matter what their background or circumstance, had the opportunity to attend an independent school? After decades of central control, it might be difficult to, but try to imagine if different schools could grow and blossom each in their own way?
Adonis understands that the more independent education is from State-control, the better the results - for everyone. It's in this direction of travel that education policy now needs to go.
Three cheers!
PS. Labour MPs hate it ...
Posted on 25 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
The Environment Agency is useless
The Environment Agency does defend our coastline - actually - whines its vice chairman, Ted Cantle, in a letter in today's Telegraph. And then to try to prove his point he writes funding to fight "flooding and coastal erosion is rising from £650 million in 2008/09 to £800 million in 2010/11".
Mr Cantle. No one doubts that your quango gets lots of public money. The problem is that you and your colleagues are monumentally useless at actually converting that cash into sea defences.
The fact that this quangocrat, Ted Cantle, automatically conflates spending money with being effective is in itself indicative of the problem.
In my constituency, the Environment Agency has conspicuously failed to provide funding to maintain the sea defences at Holland-on-Sea. A mile or two up the coast, meanwhile, they want to spend a small fortune on deliberately breeching a sea wall on the backwaters. Doing so will increase the volume of water coming into the backwaters with each tide. The fragile Naze will be eroded even faster. For sheer stupidity, it takes some beating.
The Environment Agency shows in microcosm all that is wrong with the way Britain is governed today. Taxpayers' squillions are spent by remote and unaccountable officials. Without basic public scrutiny, they don't do the boring basics, but branch out into doing those things that interest them. Worse, they fall for the latest fad within their narrow field.
The fad in coastline management is "managed retreat". In other words, you give in. You don't just spend billions giving in, you actively encourage the sea to come in. Yet fads imposed on us by unaccountable professionals, have a history of turning out to be folly. Remember urban planners and their 1960s tower blocks? 1970s architects and flat roofs? Progressive teaching methods in the 1980s?
Until the Environment Agency is made properly accountable to Parliament - confirmation hearings to appoint its chief executive, annual budgets requiring approval and the prospect of P45s for failure to deliver - we will never get the sort of coastal defences that our mis-spent millions ought to be able to buy.
Posted on 24 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Russia: its her weakness, not strength, we should fear most
We have more to fear from Russian weakness, than Russian strength. It might not seem this way as Moscow’s tanks roll into Georgia, but longer term the geopolitical headaches Russia gives us will come because she is on the slide – not because she’s a great power.
As the Economist puts it;
“Contrary to some excitable first reactions, Russia’s ability to crush the minuscule Georgian army does not make it a superpower, and its aggression in the Caucasus need not mark the start of a new cold war.
War and strife don't just come as new powers barge their way onto the stage. The history of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires show conflict can also come as once great players start to fall apart.
It may not seem that way to the poor civilians of Gori today, but as the Economist reminds us, Russia is weak; her GDP is a tenth that of the United States. America spends seven times as much on defence – and has military equipment in a different league. Russia's economy would “fall off a cliff if energy prices slumped”.
Most significant of all, however, is the fact that the population of Russia is falling by up to 800,000 a year.
It’s Russia’s demographic collapse that's the clincher. Since about 1300, the little Moscovy statelet grew, and grew and grew. She reached beyond the Urals, into Asia. She even at one point extended across the Pacific into Alaska. Yet established demographic patterns are unwinding fast, from the Caucuses to Russia’s far east.
The Kremlin’s borders have already fallen back hundreds of miles from checkpoint Charlie. Imagine if between now and 2050, the Kremlin’s borders were to retreat from south Ossetia and Vladivostok to, say, the Don and the Urals?
Something similar happened with the empires once run out of Vienna and Istanbul. It wasn’t a happy process. Given the amount of military hardware (including big bang stuff) lying about Russia’s fraying edges, it could get very nasty.
Its a weak Russia that will be the problem, not a strong one.
Posted on 23 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Mulberry jam
One of the wonderful things about blogging is the freedom to write on whatever subject takes my fancy. And today it's mulberry jam.
I've recenty discovered the enormous pleasure to be had in picking vast amounts of berries from my mulberry tree. Those that I didn't munch then and there, I stuck in a large saucepan, added some sugar, and this morning we all had the most wonderful mulberry jam on toast.
Wet August weekends were made for making mulberry jam ...
Posted on 23 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Over at the Daily Telegraph ...
.... I've a blog about the challenge ahead for any new government wanting to turn Britain around and put us back on the right track.
Posted on 22 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Surely we can do better than the council tax?
Over on ConservativeHome there is an interesting piece by a Scottish Conservative attacking the idea of a Local Income Tax for Scotland.
I agree with him ... up to a point. Lord Copper.
There are many imperfections with the idea of a Local Income Tax. But is it worse that the status quo?
The current council tax system is unfair for one fundamental reason; £3 out of every £4 spent by your local authority comes from central government. From that, all the other flaws with the council tax system flow - the arbitary council tax hikes without corresponding improvements in services. Priority given to projects that council officials want, but local people don't. Etc etc etc.
How can we move away from a system where Whitehall officials, not those you elect locally, decide what services to provide, how they are provided, and what rates of local tax you pay?
A Local Income Tax is one idea, albeit not a very good one. I much prefer the idea of a Local Sales Tax - in place of VAT. I was the first to propose this idea in a short paper here.
Instead of VAT, the money you would have paid to central government would be paid to your local council. The sums do add up because by happy coincidence, the amount central government collects in VAT receipts each year, more or less equals the amount it pays out to the town halls.
The drawback? It'd be incompatible with our EU treaty obligations. That's not a problem for me.
Posted on 21 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Topping the polls (almost)
Twelve weeks after I started blogging, my site has just been voted the 13th most popular MPs blog site. According to Iain Dale's diary, John Redwood's blog is top of the ranking (deservedly).
Thanks so much to those who voted for me. I'm delighted to have even made the top 20. Next year, who knows?
Posted on 21 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Ouch! This is going to hurt
Ken Rogoff, former head of the IMF, warns that the credit crunch is going to get worse. He suggests that some large financial institutions may fail in the months ahead.
Many Westminster politicians and pundits I speak to don't yet appear to grasp the scale of what is happening. Even some of the more thoughtful talk in terms of this being a short-lived correction. Yet Rogoff implies this may not be some sort of Russia default blip or Asia flu or dot com wobble.
The financial system is bloated - and as Rogoff makes clear, it will shrink.
Put that another way; too much money has been too cheap for too long. As a result, Western governments and individuals borrowed too much. We can no more prevent the consequences that will now unfold than we can suspend the laws of gravity.
This won't stop some politicians from trying.
The real danger is that Homer Simpson politicians confuse cause and effect - and make things worse. For example, in nationalising Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the US government will end up solving nothing. They will, however, ensure that solving nothing costs $ billions the US government can no longer afford. As an example of what not to do, it takes some beating.
But by the time that officialdom realises that, there are likely to be plenty of other examples of d'oh-brained government interventions to choose from.
Posted on 20 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Show your support for America
Without the United States of America, our world would be a much worse place. Try to imagine it? I don't just mean no internet or ipod or Simpsons. Think how uncertain and insecure the world would be.
Putin's Russia would suddenly seem much closer. Those Iranian missiles would become more scary. Everywhere, tyrants would strut unrestrained.
And for all that, what does the US want in return? Trade and friendship - not a bad deal really.
America is certainly not perfect, but we are luck to live in the age when she is world hegemon.
If you've had enough of listening to pathetic Euro-weeny, BBC-types sneering at America, sign up to this new initiative here today.
Posted on 19 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
New government new contracts?
Today's FT claims that "projects worth billions of pounds face revision or cancellation if the Conservatives win the next election".
Yep.
Just imagine; No identity cards scheme. No protectionist Defence Industrial Strategy. No more awarding companies like ETS to cock-up school sats results.
We need far greater Parliamentary accountability over these sort of lucrative public procurement contracts.
Get used to it.
Posted on 19 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Should interest rates be cut?
"Lower interest rates!" screams the British Chambers of Commerce this morning in its new report. Just as a crack addict demands another fix, we can expect to hear similar sounds from those hooked on cheap money from the pre-credit crunch days.
But are lower interest rates either desirable or, indeed, possible?
Conventional thinking in the Alan Greenspan era, was that the cost of borrowing needed to be lowered in the face of almost any economic wobble. Yet the ultra low interest rates that followed meant too much money was too cheap to borrow for too long. As a consequence, governments, people and companies borrowed more than they should. Hence the credit crunch.
The quandry for economic decision-makers is that if they cut interest rates again, they could simply add to the sea of debt that caused the problem in the first place. On the other hand, higher interest rates to reduce debt (and encourage saving) would be painful for many businesses and households.
One thing we can be sure of is that regardless of what politicans say, the real cost of borrowing is going to rise further. Whatever Bank of England interest rates do, retail banks have less money to lend. Short of rationing loans, they will have to use higher prices (rates of interest) to decide who gets them.
While the BCC might demand that interest rates be cut, something makes me doubt if government can. The government needs to borrow so much money itself, I'm not sure if it could borrow what it needs and lower the cost of borrowing.
The days of cheap money are over - and no government, no matter who demands otherwise, can bring them back.
Posted on 18 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Things we could learn from America ...
OR? 
I've a comment piece in today's Sunday Times here.
In it, I suggest that we need radical reform to repair our broken political system. We need the sort of open politics they have in the States; a right of citizens to initiate new laws, fire wayward MPs and select their next MP in "safe seats".
Sir Bufton Tufton and the massed ranks of Labour placemen in the Commons won't like this agenda. Surely that's another reason to back it.
Posted on 17 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Should BAA be broken up? Conservatives and Big Business
Sir Nigel Rudd, Chairman of BAA, apparently expects that BAA will be forced by the Competition Commission to sell-off some of its UK airports.
What should one make of this?
Conservatives have historically been seen as pro-Big Business. While in favour of free markets, today's Conservatives need to recognise that that is simply not the same as favouring large corporate interests. Indeed, Big Businesses themselves are often hostile to the market - especially when that means more competition.
Without competition between airports, you, me and tens of thousands of others have to stand in long queues and wait ages for our luggage. And pay more for the privilege.
However much one dislikes quangos like the Competition Commission, the blunt truth is that no free marketeer can support the status quo. Yet it is vital that any recommendation by the Competition Commission does actually create more free market competition - and not simply try to regulate airports as a semi-nationalised industry.
Perhaps once the Competition Commission has looked at BAA, they might then like to switch their attentions to the similarly named company, BAE.
Rather like BAA, some people believe that BAE operates in an unfair market without meaningful competition. As with BAA, BAE customers can allegedly end-up with long delays and a very expensive service.
When there is a lack of competition between airports, thousands of voters stand around empty luggage carousels - and write angry letters to their MP. The consequences of a lack of competition are made obvious.
However, with defence, the consequences are much less evident because the customer is government. Yet when government is left waiting at the luggage carousel for defence contracts to be delivered, it is ultimately going to be our overstretched armed forces who suffer.
If you think that BAA needs breaking-up, you should support more competition in the defence sector, too. Big Business might not like it, but it would ensure that our armed forces got the kit they needed, when they needed it.
Posted on 16 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Rule of law or rule by lawyers?
I've just been on the Today programme defending the fact that politicians and others have to swear alleigance to the Queen. A group of human rights lawyers say that this is not compatible with our human rights laws, and we need to change.
My view was that if the Loyal Oath is incompatible with the Human Rights Act, then it is the human rights laws that will need to go.
The Queen is a profoundly unifying force - no matter what your background or heritage, we can all unite with her has our head of state.
If we strip away those things about our country that are distinct, we will be an indistinct country. I can think of lots of such countries where the citizenry ape loyalty to flags, anthems and politician Presidents.
Not content with trying to tell us how to run things that should be decided by our elected government, human rights lawyers now what to usurp the Queen.
One more reason to axe the Human Rights Act and quit the European Convention on Human Rights....
Posted on 15 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
How government squanders your money - and the politicians let them
According to the Financial Times, Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, is at loggerheads with Harriet Harman, the deputy Labour leader and minister for equality, over procurement rules. Apparently, Ms Harman would like those 30 per cent of companies that sell goods and services to the state to "improve their equality".
Under the Harman proposals, companies could be awarded public contracts on the basis of their gender pay gap and the number of ethnic minority and disabled people they employ. Darling is reported to be opposed to all this because he thinks it will add to the burden of regulation that businesses already face.
It is - I suppose - something that at least one member of the government grasps how ridiculous Harriet Harman's idea is. Yet of all that can and should be said about procurement policy, it is extraordinary that the only thing two vacuous Ministers can find to say about it concerns gender gaps and politically-correct targets.
In almost every sphere of public policy in Britain today there usually sits a very large corporate contractor, receiving very large sums of public money. As a new MP, I've been amazed to discover that there is almost nothing that I, or indeed any MP you vote for, can do to find out if the money public contractors receive is being spent wisely.
Sitting on the Schools Select Committee, I tried to find out details of £150 million contract signed with ETS to administer (disastrously) children's SATS results. None of your business, I was told. Returning from Afghanistan having discovered our armed forces lacked vital kit, I tabled dozens of Parliamentary questions about various defence contracts. Ministers failed to answer. When I persisted, I was told that "commercial confidentiality" meant I wasn't going to be told.
Billions of pounds of public money are transferred onto the balance sheets of a few contractors. With almost no public accountability, the money is spent in the contractors interests, rather than the taxpayers. Yet there is almost nothing those you vote for can do about it.
The result? Botched SATS test and soldiers in Helmand without helicopters. The same waste and incompetence can be found in almost every sector of public expenditure.
There was a time when Parliament not only held the executive to account, but controlled public expenditure. Not any more.
The next government needs to radically rethink how public procurement contracts are awarded. Quangos need to have their ability to dish out contracts on everything - from helicopters to history exams - curtailed. Parliament needs to have a way of scrutinising how our money is spent.
Until then, Ministers will keep posturing about "equality gaps", yet ignore way in which vast amounts of public money are currently being wasted.
Posted on 14 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Prince Charles and GM crops
Prince Charles has spoken out against GM crops. I'm a staunch monarchist, and wouldn't want to contradict the next King of England.
However, I do find that GM is a subject on which I'm having second thoughts.
With the cost of fertilisers hurting local farmers, and rising food prices hitting vulnerable people in the UK (not to mention third world countries), can we afford to ignore what GM could offer?
Like most people, I don't like the idea of lots of pesticides and chemicals. With soaring costs, neither do many farmers. But I gather that GM technology could in fact allow us to reduce the need to spray crops in the first place.
George Bridges, who is a very great man indeed, has written a first-class article about this in today's Telegraph.
I cheer the Prince loudly as our heir to the throne, but I also recommend you read George's article.
Posted on 13 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Big Government is out of control
Someone called Sir Paul Kennedy has urged councils to "make more use" of new spying legislation to access phone bills and telephone records - according to today's Telegraph. Kennedy is apparently the sinisterly named Interception of Communications Commissioner.
If ever you need evidence that our system of Parliamentary democracy no longer works, surely this is it.
Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, this man is put into the job supposedly to protect us from unlawful intrusion. Yet with a Kafkaesque logic, he ends up urging more intrusion.
Not only does he encourage intrusion, but as a central government official he is himself intruding on local government when he tells it what to do.
If pushed, like other officials, he would no doubt trot out the standard line about being accountable to Parliament via Ministers etc etc etc. Utter tosh. I sit in Parliament, and he is not accountable to me - nor anyone else in the House of Commons. The traditional model of accountability to Parliament through Ministers simply does not work any more (look at the SATS fiasco involving the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority).
Until the House of Commons has the power to directly hire and fire quango chiefs like this, we will see more and more Big State intrusion.
Posted on 12 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
A New Bill of Rights and Trekkies
One of the worst things about my job as an MP is having to sit on the Joint Committee on Human Rights. It is rather like, I imagine, being forced to attend a Star Trek convention when you have no time whatsoever for Kirk, Spock and co.
Like Trekkies, many of those on the Parliamentary Human Rights committee have some pretty out-of-this-world beliefs; Legislation, to them, has an almost mystical power to perfect our fallen world. Judges, adjudicating on the basis of legal codes, are like some higher life form, infinitely wiser and more morally equiped than us mere humans. Judges, the committee seems to think, should Vulcan-like preside over us to create a quasi-utopia.
This explains why in the committee's latest report, they argue that we need to extend the scope of judges to oversee the rest of us. They want a new British Bill of Rights to give us all rights to housing, education and a healthy environment.
One of the handful of non-Trekkies at the Start Trek convention, I wrote a minority report calling for a new British Bill of Rights. But one which curtails judicial activism, rather than giving it free rein.
The powers that judges already have under Labour's Human Rights Act are deeply resented - and lack democratic legitimacy. The idea that we might allow yet more judicial activism is simply daft.
We desperately need reform in order to hold the overbearing executive to account - but we need to ensure that it is the legislature - accountable to the people - not judges, who take on this role. The new British Bill of Rights that I envisage would not widen the scope for activist judges, but define the role of the judiciary and the legislature in relation to the executive.
Most of those with whom I serve on the Human Rights committee are perfectly nice and amiable Peers. They often have a lifetime interest in human rights, and are deeply knowledgable. Yet, I can't help thinking that it is precisely because they have such a close interest in the subject that they are perhaps not the best persons to decide for us.
Posted on 11 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Ease off the China-bashing, please
The Olympics have begun, and as with each Games, someone somewhere will try to grab the lime-light of world attention to make a political point.
And a good thing too.
One should be free to shout "Free Tibet" in Tiananmen square, or indeed, "Free Scotland" in Trafalgar square at the next Games. But I hope that legitimate concerns about the Chinese authorities don't turn into all out China-bashing.
If anyone felt strongly that China shouldn't host these games, the time to object was several years ago.
China is clearly an authoritarian country. Her people do not (yet) enjoy the liberties we take for granted. But is it right to describe China as a "terror" state, as does Edward McMillan-Scott MEP? I'd need to see more evidence.
There are all sorts of countries, such as Saudi Arabia, for example, guilty of doing much more vile things. Yet last year our Foreign Office arranged to have their princlings paraded down the Mall for a Royal Banquet. If we honour such people, how can we be so shrill about China?
Behind some of the anti-Chinese rhetoric, I detect just a hint of Western resentment. Perhaps, as with anti-Americanism, anti-Chinese sentiment will become a form of Euro-jingoism?
Many commentators seem clever enough to realise that China is going places on the world stage. Yet few have thought through how we might need to respond.Rather than hurling shrill certainties, perhaps we should use the occasion of these Olympics to ponder; the West has learnt much from China over past centuries. Perhaps it's time to learn again?
In the West, we have held various assumptions that we may need to rethink.
For four decades, Europeans have assumed that pan-EU rules and regulations mean we all gain economically (economies of scale, level playing field blah, blah, blah). Yet, since the late 1970s, China has move in precisely the opposite direction. She has decentralised the way she organises her economy, and today even has different legal and regulatory systems within provinces.Whose economy is now more dynamic? Will we not have to decentralise, too, if we are to have any hope of keeping up?
In most EU member states, the taxman routinely helps himself to some 30 - 40 per cent of company profits. Can we compete commercially with China, if we continue to do that?
In the West, we have a series of assumptions about welfare provision. Will the rise of China change this? Will Western countries be able to afford their bloated welfare State, without far-reaching reform? I don't know for sure. But I can take a wild guess.
Visiting a Chinese university last year, I watched would-be undergraduates attend an open day. Often accompanied by parents and grandparents, entire families inspected the facilities and asked staff searching questions. Watching, I wondered if my countrymen placed that sort of value on education, and if not, why not?
The young Chinese students I met were decently patriotic, yet full of curiosity about the world. I was impressed by their ideas and questions.
There is much about China that is imperfect. Like all unaccountable elites, her technocracy is a Bad Thing. Yet, China has come along leaps and bounds. There is more to admire about modern China, than there is to rage against.
China was once overtaken by the West because we learnt from her, as she refused to learn anything from us. Today we need to learn a lot more than just how to host an Olympic games.
Posted on 9 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Blogging for the Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph runs an excellent blog site, and they've asked me to start contributing. Does this mean that I've made it as a blogger, or are they just desperate for someone to write something?
Either way, my first post is up today. Have a read here.
Let me know if there is a particular subject you'd like to see me blogging about, either here or for the Telegraph?
Posted on 7 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Its called the internet, Mr Brown ...
I don't like to boast, but .... it was back in 2005 that I set up my own ClactonTV site. Being pre-YouTube (why didn't I think a bit more laterally?), the first version even had to have its own video software.
Today, we hear that the great, clunking-fist in Downing Street is launching his own Number 10 TV site to do likewise.
Yet looking at www.Number10TV.com, it seems that not only is Mr Brown light-years behind the rest of us, someone seems to have forgotten to register the domain name.
Homer Simpson once marvelled "They have the internet on computers, now !?!". Do you suppose Gordon thinks likewise?
When I say that our Prime Minister doesn't seem to get the internet, it is not just that his team have been slow to use it. They really don't seem to appreciate what the consequences of the internet will be on public services, politics and everything.
Posted on 7 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Heat or eat - a nasty surprise around the corner?
On a humid August evening, winter heating bills are perhaps not at the forefront of every readers mind. Yet it is going to seem very different in six months time.
As the nights draw in, temperatures fall and central heating systems are switched on. Then we are all going to get a nasty shock. The cost of gas, oil and electricity to heat our homes have rocketed. A 30% plus rise in gas might not seem disasterous now, but a cold winter will change that - especially for pensioners on fixed incomes.
Heat or eat, could be the choice some people have to make.
The pity is that this could be avoided. As John Redwood points out on his excellent blog, if government had not acted so stupidly, there would not be a problem over energy security. There is still time to act, but Labour seems more intent on internal squabbles than on sorting this mess out ....
Posted on 6 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Defence Industrial Strategy = Helicopter Shortages
Defence chiefs apparently held a top secret meeting last week to try to work out why our armed forces don't have enough helicopters. It is obvious to anyone who has been in Afghanistan for 10 minutes that we have too few. Indeed, some soldiers can explain it even more succinctly.
That we have too few helicopters is clear. Less obvious is why?
Britain spends billions on helicopters. Yet the money is spent in the interests of a handful of defence contractors, not our armed forces. In other words, instead of buying the best kit available at the best price and quickly, we buy stuff that won't be ready for years. Literally years.
The result is that our lads in Afghanistan and Iraq don't have the helicopters they need. Some claim that we've taken more casualties as a result - a blood price, you might say.
Current defence procurement policy is better at transfering money onto the balance sheet of a few contractors, than at kitting out our armed forces. This is because policy is dictated by the protectionist Defence Industrial Strategy.
It is this protectionist mind-set that might explain why when Sikorsky apparently approached MoD offering over a dozen affordable helicopters right away, no one responded for months. That's right. A company offered us enough helicopters to drastically improve tactical flexibility in Afghanistan - but no one got back to them for months. I wonder if that was on the agenda when the top brass met? "Okay, chaps. Which one of you got this letter from this Sikorsky fellow, then?"
More likely than incompetence, it was because MoD doesn't think Sikorsky are the right sort of company. If not, why not? Is it because the helicopters they make are not up to scratch? They seem to serve the Americans ok. Is it because former MoD sorts don't happen to serve on their boards? Or is it because their helicopters aren't built in the UK? If you are on a minefield in Helmand, and need a helicopter, I don't think you'd give a damn where it was made.
I don't know. But I do know that protectionist defence procurement explains why a recent billion pound helicopter contract was awarded without - as the Minister admits in his letter to me - a fully competitive procurement process. Was that on the agenda at the MoD meeting? If not, why not?
There is something sickeningly wrong with current defence procurement policy.
Who will have the courage to take on the powerful vested interests to change it?
Posted on 5 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
The Bush / Brown response to the credit crunch is wrong
The cause of the credit crunch is pretty simple; too much money was too cheap to borrow for too long. As a result, both governments and individuals borrowed too much and saved too little. From that, all else followed.
All that talk about sub-prime mortgages and collateralised debt obligations sounded very clever and it might have explained how things unravelled. But it never enlightened us as to why it suddenly became so difficult to borrow money.
When businesses and home-owners started to discover that they could no longer get cheap loans, I was rather puzzled to hear so many clever-dick commentators talking as if lower interest rates would obviously follow. Indeed, I remember a certain colleague of mine in the Commons scoff at my suggestion that interest rates might actually go up.
What caused my Treasury expert friend so much mirth was my suggestion that even if government could lower the cost of borrowing, it might not necessarily be desirable to do so.
If banks don’t have money to lend, I reasoned, it doesn’t really matter how low government sets interest rates (the price of borrowed money). Either banks won’t lower their prices (i.e. pass on interest rate cuts to borrowers), as has happened, or they’ll use other non-pricing ways to allocate a finite supply of debt (i.e. they'll ration mortgages). As has also happened.
Even if government could lower the cost of borrowing, I reasoned, given that cheap money was the cause of the problem in the first place, I fail to see how creating more cheap money is going to solve things.
It seems as if the US and UK governments now realise that simply lowering interest rates is not the answer – perhaps because if they lower rates any more they might find themselves unable to keep borrowing. Yet they appear to be trying new and even more dangerous ways of reinflating the debt bubble.
The US government has de facto underwritten the position of US mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (US$ 6 trillion!). Now it is hinted that the UK government may intervene to in effect provide cheap, State-backed mortgages. On both sides of the Atlantic, I fear that future generations of taxpayer will be left with tens of billions of pounds of unsellable debt. And all that for what purpose? So that yet more people find themselves unable to afford a home (at least on this side of the Atlantic)? So that politicians avoid the inevitable consequences of piling debt upon debt during their time in office?
The credit crunch should be making us scale back debt – and encourage saving (No Noble Prizes for guessing which instruments of economic policy you raise to do that). Yet public policy under Bush in the US and Brown in the UK is likely to end up doing the precise opposite. They will saddle us with yet more
public and private debt. Thus could a short-lived disaster be converted into potential catastrophe.
I think that even my colleague in the Commons might be starting to see things a little differently now. Let's hope Bush and Brown's successors do, too.
Posted on 3 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
Another pointless politician
Today's Daily Telegraph has this to say of Labour MP Liam Byrne; "he has tackled the explosive job of Immigration with aplomb".
Oh yes? Does that mean that with Liam in charge the problem of immigration has been solved?
Of course not.
What it means is that like an actor playing a role, Mr Byrne has said the right things, emoted the right way. The commentariat, like so many theatre critics, warm to him.
Ministers, of course, have little influence over immigration. It is international treaties and unelected judges who determine how wide open we must keep the door. But Ministers can at least play the role of being Minister with "aplomb".
Posted on 2 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
10,000 Scouts in my constituency
I've just attended the Essex International Scout Jamboree on a farm in my constituency. It was a genuine pleasure to see so many cheery, happy, enthusiastic teens from all over the world.
Posted on 1 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell
This recession is all too real
Fraser Nelson has an interesting piece about our gloomy economic prospects here at the Spectator.
I rate Fraser highly and think he is one of the most thoughtful commentators around. However, I'd have thought he was overstating his case - if it wasn't for what I'm now seeing regularly in my constituency Advice Surgeries.
Today's surgery alone brought further grim evidence that many people are really struggling; mortgage meltdown means rapidly rising rent, debt is becoming a much heavier burden, there are fewer jobs around, food prices are up and utility bills are landing on doormats with a thud.
This downturn doesn't just exist in the comment pages of newspapers - its starting to hurt in the real world.
Posted on 1 August 2008 by Douglas Carswell