Totnes rules! You cannot sabotage an open primary
With Totnes Conservatives leading the way on open source politics, the BBC and Guardianistas* are predictably blathering on about how open primaries can be sabotaged with anti-Tories voting for the "weakest candidate".
Hillary Clinton said much the same about Obama, too.
It's nonsense to suggest the Totnes experiment in direct democracy can be sabotaged in such a way. First, the Conservative party decided who was on the short-list - and they'd not put anyone on it they'd not be happy to have as a candidate. Second, non traditional Tory voters allowed to take part in the selection process will be far more likely to back the Conservative candidate in the General Election.
Besides, if you get more votes than anyone else, in what way are you a weaker candidate?
(* - I suspect the British left, once worthy successors to the Levellers, yet today entrenched in their quangos, loath the fact that the momentum for democratic renewal and direct democracy are now coming from the centre right)
Posted on 30 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
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Posted on 30 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The Great Repeal Bill
Britain is over regulated. Laws, regulation and red tape stifle individuals, infantilise communities and strangle enterprise. We need a Great Repeal Bill.
Bills are traditionally drafted by "experts" and professional politicians. But it will require the wisdom and experience of all those struggling to cope with them to know which ones to scrap. That's why the Great Repeal Bill is not being drafted by them - but by you.
Do you run a business or community group? What rules and red tape have prevented you from reasonable actions you'd otherwise have taken? Please be specific and only cite rules that you personally know to be overbearing.
Deregulation is too important - for our businesses, society and sense of civic pride - to "leave to the experts". We've been waiting for the professional politicians to tackle red tape - and we're still waiting. All they've so far done is set up more quangos - a Better Regulation taskforce - and invent more red tape - regulation impact assessments forms.
So why not act now and help us draft the Bill? If it is a success, we hope that the draft Bill will be introduced in Parliament in the next session.
Perhaps this experiment in open source politics won't work. Maybe the draft Bill will be overrun by ranters. But if like me, you think there's more common sense to be found outside SW1 than there is inside, let's give it a go.
Click here to help draft the Great Repeal Bill
Posted on 29 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Traditional values?
I meet a social worker to discuss some of her concerns about welfare dependency and what she calls "second and third generation unemployment". She gives me some shocking statistics about the correlation between certain endemic social problems and family breakdown.
She's a really nice person, and in her effort not to be "judgemental", tells me that if some people choose a "non-traditional lifestyle", we should not judge them through what she calls "old-fashioned middle class values".
I'm not in the business of judging, yet something she says makes me ponder;
In what sense are those values she calls "middle class", really traditional? Surely they're actually rather modern values?
Unless you cling to Rousseau (as do many within the contemporary environmental movement), pre-industrial society was not some Arcadian paradise, but actually rather brutal. The reality, I suspect, is that for most of the past 100,000 years of human history, with brief interludes, there's been a distinct absence of what my friend calls "middle class values".
Perhaps if we were to revert to what was really traditional, it'd not be very pretty?
Posted on 29 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Quote of the day
"Matters of science cannot be resolved by authority or consensus"
- Prof Ian Plimer, author of Heaven and Earth, explaining why, no matter how many experts insist the science of global warming is settled, the truth lies in the evidence.
(Ps. Just been reading his explanation of how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is not really a science body, but influenced by activists and politicians. Really surprised. I'd always assumed the IPCC could be taken at face value)
Posted on 28 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Extradite the judiciary or import democracy?
British judges, according to today's Telegraph, are more likely to agree to extradite suspects to the US than American judges are to allow their citizens to be put on trial in the UK.
Of course.
That's because US judges are more democratically accountable than ours. However snooty us Brits are about the American system of democratic judicial appointments, it does mean that the US judiciary answers to their demos. That tends to make them a little cautious before handing over their citizens to foreign jurisdictions.
British judges, by contrast, answer only to other judges and to quangos like the Judicial Appointments Commission. It helps explain why they're so into pan-EU arrest warrants and anything that supports the idea of supranational jurisdiction. 17th century accountability explains many of the contemporary biases of the British judiciary - on extradition and much else.
Posted on 28 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
An immigration strike?
I see that immigration officers have voted to hold a two day strike.
Does that mean that there won't be any immigration for two days?
Somehow I doubt it. I suspect it'll be ordinary holiday makers who suffer and illegal immigration will ... well, you know ... sort of continue .... just like it does every day.
Posted on 27 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Simple ideas to help Britain through austerity
For the past decade, Gordon Brown's been spending our money as if the extra revenue generated from the property and financial services bubble was a permanent addition to the tax base. Now the money has run out.
Over at ConHome, Tim Montgomerie is asking for simple, cost free ideas to help Britain deal with Brown's feckless recklessness. Here's my suggestion;
Every Whitehall department and quango must have its annual budget formally approved by the relevant Commons select committee. Indeed, the Commons committee should go through the budget and veto line items that cannot be justified.
How might that help?
a) Wasteful expenditure would be exposed
b) Quango spending would be reined in - or even done away with entirely
c) Whitehall officials - de facto accountable to no one - might actually be made to answer for how they hose about our money
d) It'd give all those MPs something worthwhile to do for a change. At present, our legislators are monumentally useless at holding government to account for how they spend our money - hence the rising tax bills. Under this proposal, MPs might at last do their jobs.
You can't rely only on government to curb government spending.
Posted on 27 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Jaywick's Golden Oldies
I took the four month old to Jaywick this afternoon to judge the "Golden Oldies" competition. The community was organising the summer fair and it was lots of fun!
Well done to Brenda, the Golden Oldie winner!
Posted on 26 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Go ahead. Call an EU vote, if you dare
Apparently Gordon Brown, ever fearful of elections, is thinking about calling a referendum on the same day as the General Election in order to try to alter the outcome in his favour.
One idea is that he might propose some radical changes to our electoral system - and hope that the Tories oppose it and therefore look out of touch and reactionary. Not much to fear there.
Anything Gordo advocates is instantly discredited anyhow. Simply knowing that the great clunking fist-of-it is behind something is enough to turn everyone else off.
Another idea rumoured to be under consideration in the Downing Street bunker is to call an in-or-out vote on our EU membership.
Go ahead. A referendum not just on the Treaty of Lisbon, but of Rome. Bring it on.
Posted on 26 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Open primaries and the BBC's bad journalism
Today did a feature on way the new model Conservatives are using proper open primaries to decide who gets to be the next MP for Totnes - the first time it's been done in Britain.
The report focused on the irrelevant; The fact that the local Association chairman had apparently thought they'd not use one a few weeks ago, or that reporter Martyn Oates found the process a surprise. Yawn.
Nowhere in the report did Today attempt to convey the fact that this is a serious and credible attempt to create a new system of open source politics. Not once did it explain what the implications of this process could ultimately be on the power of party whips, or the relationship between the legislature and the executive. Or that this is the sort of consumerist politics ideally suited to the age of YouTube.
Perhaps it was all a bit too much of an effort to do any serious background on the subject? Or examine how and why this idea came about?
UPDATE: Just been listening to Dimblebey blabbing away about the politics of anti-politics. Same thing. No recognition that there might be a body of thought on this outside his producer's attention span.
We are as badly informed by the unaccountable BBC, with its smug media-ocracy, was we are poorly served by the unaccountable House of Commons, with its safe seats syndrome.
Posted on 25 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
What does Shanghai's two child policy say about China?
Shanghai is to abandon China's infamous one child policy, and allow local residents to have two children.
Put aside the demographics for a moment. What's really remarkable is that it's a Shanghai specific policy in the first place. Rather than being a China-wide policy, it's an initiative at city / provincial level.
China might have one single time zone, but her provinces enjoy a remarkable lack of standardisation when it comes to public policy. Starting in 1978, control over state owned businesses was handed over to the provinces. Today different provinces and zones enjoy different commercial rules and legal systems. Include Hong Kong, and you've even got different currencies.
Meanwhile, which political union, at the other end of the Eurasian land mass, has been centralising public policy making, while China's been decentralising? Who's been standardising and harmonising and ending exceptionalism as an end in itself, as China has been establishing special economic zones?
And who do you think has been prospering?
Posted on 25 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Public prosecutors aren't working for the public
Today's announcement by the head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that the criminal justice system needs a radical rethink is to be welcomed.
His own quango is demonstrably failing local communities across Britain; 7% of cases are abandoned by the CPS "in error". Despite the number of offences committed by 14-18 year olds rising since the CPS was established, the number of prosecutions brought by the CPS has more than halved.
This should come as no surprise - the CPS is unaccountable. And all unaccountable institutions - from the House of Commons with its "safe seats syndrome" to the CPS with its quangocracy - end up failing the public.
How to make the CPS properly accountable? Here's a proposal for directly accountable local prosecutors. It'd ensure that those who made the decision to prosecute or not respected local sensibilities.
Today the evidential test and the public interest test allow unaccountable officials at the CPS discretion - without accountability for how they exercise that discretion. Cases that ought to go to trial never do. The result is that wrong-doers go free. Police effort is undermined.
However effective the police are at chasing wrong-doers through the street, we'll never have a criminal justice system on our side unless the public prosecutors are as effective at chasing wrong-doers through the courts.
Somehow I doubt these are the sort of reforms that the CPS head honcho has in mind.
Posted on 24 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Get government out of the classroom
If ministers ran supermarkets, you'd have catchment areas for breakfast cereals and waiting lists for bananas. So why do we let them run our children's schools?
Today the Commons Education committee - on which I sit - reveals that Ed Balls, the minister, was directly responsible for the SATS fiasco last summer. He and the QCA quango managed together to ensure that blunders affected the results for 1.2 million children. As long as we have to rely on politicians and officials to provide us with effective and meaningful exams, we'll never get them.
That's not to say I don't think we should have exams. I do. Lots of them and even a few tough ones.
But it should be up to universities, colleges, secondary schools and professions to set them. Why? Simple. They have a vested interest in accurately assessing what's been learnt upstream. Government and officials have a vested interest in exaggerating.
Which exam system has retained its value in recent years, and which has suffered grade inflation? The IB or the A level? Go figure.
Posted on 23 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Is the Mirror journalism?
Someone called David Collins from the Mirror phones up. He wants to know why I've advertised for a part-time, temporary Office Administrator at £50 per day.
I explain that it's well above the minimum - and it compares favourably with what many other MPs pay for people doing similar roles filing and photocopying. No story.
Ah, he insists. But there is. He tells me that it sounds like my Office Administrator would actually be a Constituency Caseworker, and ought to be on £19,000 a year.
Is this serious journalism?
Last time the Mirror launched an attack on me, their editor, Richard Wallace wrote a letter admiting that they had "over stepped the mark".
Still, at least this latest "attack" gives me an opportunity to post my favourite cartoon once again.
Posted on 22 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
When we were grown up
I sit waiting for a train at a small rural railway station early on a summer's morning. Every few minutes an automatic voice barks:
"Smoking anywhere on the station platforms is forbidden"
"Do not leave your luggage. Any left luggage may be destroyed by the security services". Security services, eh? Gosh.
I look up and down the platform and can't imagine anyone had been planning on doing either.
Today I shall count how many pointless, officious orders and notices I come across.
Are such mindless orders a symptom of our infantilisation by the nanny state, or are they partly a cause of it?
Posted on 22 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
What faith in the state?
The BBC reports that an illegal immigrant has just been jailed for eight years for an extremely violent crime.
Listening to it, I wonder what chance there is he'll serve the full term. About the same as the chances of him being deported at the end of it, I'd imagine.
Unwilling or unable to run an effective justice or immigration system, could it be that the state is run by quangos for the benefit of officials? Maybe it's just not on our side?
Posted on 21 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Spot your MP
Campaign organisation 38 Degrees is running a "spot your MP" competition over the summer. The idea seems to be to use the public to keep track on MPs between now and October.
I'm hoping I get "spotted" judging the Golden Oldie competition in Jaywick or eating candy floss on Clacton pier!
Or doesn't that count?
Posted on 21 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Pork barrel politics in Britain
Our defence budget, I've dared to suggest, should be spent first and foremost to equip our armed forces - not provide jobs.
Unsurprisingly, some local MPs in constituencies that benefit from protectionist defence spending are outraged. "Who does Carswell think he is!"
They've every right to speak up for their constituency interest, local defence contractors. And I've every right to speak up for mine, our armed forces.
At least in America, when legislators act to ensure public money is spent locally, they're honest enough to call it "pork barrel" politics. Over here we do the same, but kid ourselves that what we're doing is somehow more noble.
Posted on 21 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Magpie alert!
The Plan, as Daniel Hannan notes, continues to be read. And if not always understood, certainly cut and pasted.
Which is a good thing. It's great to be writing the script.
I do, however, hope that those who claim these ideas as their own understand them properly. Like a finely-tuned motor, the operator needs some concept as to how it's all been put together and why.
Selsdon Man - that precursor to Thatcher's radical agenda of economic decentralisation - showed what can happen to half understood radicalism. Any plan to radically decentralise politics and public services ought to be thought through.
Posted on 20 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Can any government cut tax?
Taxes pay governments to spend. How many governments do you know with the self-discipine to reduce either?
Perhaps it's a mistake to look to government to reduce what it spends and taxes? If, like me, you think lower taxes and spend are vital to revive us from long-term economic stupor, maybe we shouldn't leave it to ministers and the executive.
Once - before it grew supine and spineless - our legislature voted to "approve supply". That's to say, those we elected went through government budgets, and said "no". MPs have somehow stopped doing that - and we've had a steadily rising tax burden ever since.
Rather than leave it to ministerial fiat to cut tax, perhaps we need a new system of properly accountable politics? If every MP was accountable - not only for their expenses - but how they scrutinised Whitehall's - we'd achieve what no post-war government has managed.
Posted on 20 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Do we need to scrap Future Lynx and buy Sikorsky Blackhawk instead?
A couple of years ago, I wrote a paper designed to make sure our armed forces in Afghanistan had enough helicopters. It was called "Why we need to scrap Future Lynx and buy Sikorsky Blackhawk instead".
I circulated it and discussed it in SW1. Some folk told me it was "too simplistic".
Today the Telegraph writes "The MoD ... confirmed it had twice in the past three years been offered a deal to purchase US-made Sikorsky helicopters but decided to continue with plans involving British firms."
"Had the deal been agreed, nearly half of the helicopters would have been delivered in 2008 and the remainder by the end of this year."
Indeed. It is pretty simple.
I'm minded to publish the paper for all to read.
Posted on 20 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The myth of man-made global warming exposed?
I put a question mark at the end, because I still can’t quite believe that virtually the entire political establishment and (state-funded) scientific community have got it quite so wrong.
But that, according to Professor Ian Plimer’s book – Heaven and Earth - is precisely what’s happened.
Ever open-minded, I intend to read the good Professor’s book to find out more. Before you send an angry email calling me a “climate change denier”, I suggest you do too.
One thing I do know for certain; Current policy means that some of my poorest constituents have to pay much higher energy bills than they’d otherwise. The higher bills are being used to subsidise big corporations to build lots of large wind turbines around Clacton and elsewhere. Big profit margins. Guaranteed revenue streams. All very convenient for some large firms.
This amounts to a regressive redistribution of wealth from poor pensioners to big business – all in the name of environmentalism.
Besides, if man-made climate change really is such a problem, why aren’t we building more nuclear power stations?
Posted on 19 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Which are your favorite blogs?
Iain Dale, the blogosphere's top list-maker, is drawing up another list - and he needs your help to do it. Iain wants to know what your favourite ten blogs are.
Naturally, I'm hoping that you'll email him a list with me at the top and nine others (You need to list ten, in order of preference, for it to count).
My list included Daniel Hannan, Sir Donal Blaney KCMG, ConservativeHome, Guido Fawkes OBE, Tom Harris, Dizzy Thinks, Mark Steyn (does that count?), John Redwood and Archbishop Cranmer.
Send Iain your top ten at toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com
Posted on 18 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
No time to wobble in Afghanistan
Charles Moore writes a brilliant piece in today's Telegraph, which reminds us that this is no time to go wobbly in Afghanistan.
Like others, I might have concerns about some of the tactics (destroying farmers poppy crops is dumb) and the way we equip our armed forces (protectionist procurement, rather than buying simply the best kit is outrageous). However, it's important that we don't lose sight of the basic facts.
We're fighting alongside our key ally - the United States - in a stuggle against people who want to destroy our way of life. President Obama, who's not exactly a hawk, "gets it".
Unless we want to be nothing more than Euro-whingers - great for photo ops at the next G8 alongside Sarko and co, but of zero consequence in the world - we'd do well to reflect on what Moore writes.
We need to make sure that in our criticisms of how the war is conducted, we don't undermine those fighting on our behalf.
Posted on 18 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Why Conservatives urgently need to rethink their position on defence
Two years ago, I wrote a piece for ConservativeHome here suggesting that the Conservatives needed to radically rethink their positon on defence procurement - which seems to me to be a bit of a scam. We supply our armed forces with substandard kit, that costs more to buy than more reliable off-the-shelf alternatives.
I wrote specifically here and here and here of the way that the helicopter budget was being spent in the interests of certain contractors - and not, I told the House of Commons in this debate, of our armed forces. I spoke of the terrible price our armed forces would pay in Helmand as a consequence.
It really is time for the Conservatives to rethink their approach to defence. We need to apply to defence procurement the same ideas that we readily apply to other areas of public policy. And sharpish.
Posted on 17 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
500th follower on Twitter @DouglasCarswell
Welcome to the Guardian's Andrew Sparrow, who is my 500th follower on Twitter.
Do you suppose he'll get his colleague, Sir Michael White, to Twitter? That would be amusing.
I'm still only following three people though. How does it work? If you follow folk, does that mean more folk follow you?
You can follow me here.
Posted on 17 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Where did all the choppers go?
According the the Commons Defense select committee, our troops lack enough helicopters in Afghanistan.
What they don't say is that's in part due to the fact we blew the helicopter budget. On a £1 billion order with a favoured contractor for helicopters that won't be ready until 2013.
At twice the price of proven alternatives. Which weren't even properly considered, since MoD failed to even run a competitive tender process.
Cui bono? Not our armed forces, that's for sure.
Posted on 16 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Atlas Shrugged got me thinking - again
I get to page 1099 of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged - only another 100 pages to go! (Non Rand readers, please bear with me ....)
US President Thompson offers Galt a fifty / fifty deal; Galt to takeover matters economic, Thompson and co to keep the political.
It got me thinking - such a deal is an impossibility. A con trick. But one we ourselves fall for.
Under Mrs Thatcher, we decentralised control of the economy (privatisation, supply-side liberalisation, union reform et al), but left a centralised political state intact. Might not the later have doomed many of the accomplishments of the former?
Sure enough, since Maggie was ousted, tax rises resumed, a new breed of quangos took over and we're as regulated and nannied as we were under any socialists.
The notion we might rely on executive fiat (however sound the views of individual ministers) to cut taxes or repeal big government, is a absurd as Thompson's idea Galt might heal the damage cause by state control via new decrees.
Perhaps the key is to decentralise and liberalise control of politics first. Maybe we need to do now to our politics and public services what Maggie sought to do to our economy. An effective legislature that can say "no" to government. A seperation of powers. Independent county government. Competition in our political process, rather than a closed-shop in SW1?
Posted on 16 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Tony Blair - President of the EU?
Another reason to quit.
Discuss.
Posted on 15 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Compulsory "care tax" is another con
Today the government unveils plans that could include a "compulsory care scheme". The idea is that when you retire, you'll have to hand over to the state a vast sum of cash. This payment of up to £20,000 is supposedly to pay for your care in old age.
But what about all that other cash - called tax - which you've been forced to hand over to government every day of your working life?
There can be no clearer illustration of the vast con trick government has carried out on a whole generation. For every £100 earned, an average earner gives about £60 - £70 of it to the state in one form of tax or another. Should you choose to use the £30 - £40 left over to buy a home or save a little, you're taxed again.
Should you fall on hard times through no fault of your own, you soon discover that the state discriminates against you for having done the right thing. Indeed, they'll take that home - which you scrimped and saved to buy using your taxed income - from you before they'll provide you with care.
And what guarantee is there that having charged you a lump £20,000 "compulsory care charge" on retirement, the state will then keep it's end of the bargain and actually give you care when you need it? They've reneged on pretty much most of the welfare compact you thought existed since Beveridge.
What is it that the state has done with the massive tax receipts it’s taken off you all these years? Much has been frittered away by quangos and on politicians' pet projects.
How has this been allowed to happen? Perhaps it's time to recognise that our legislature, nominally in charge of overseeing public finances since the civil war, has in fact been asleep on the job for decades.
Posted on 15 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The Charity Commission is nasty
Of all the nasty, spiteful things this government has done, its attack on free schools is about the vilest.
Over the next year, an unelected quango - the Charity Commission - will assess every independent school in the country. Unless they are deemed to provide "public benefit" - as defined by chippy quangocrats - they'll lose their charitable status.
Do all charities get assessed in this way? Of course not. Do all the organisations listed on www.fakecharities.org, each of whom spivs it up on the public payroll, have to run sports days and access day just to be allowed to exist? Silly question.
The Charity Commission might have an innocuous sounding name, but it is a deeply malevolent body. The nationalisation of charity diminishes the meaning of philanthropy. For the health of civic society, it must be wound up.
Then, rather than attack free schools, we need to give every school in the country the right to become a free school. And every mum and dad the right to control their child's share of the education budget.
Posted on 14 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
What is aid for?
India has a space programme, yet we give her aid. China lifts herself out of poverty with double-digit growth. But still we give our giant creditor puny handouts.
Perhaps Western aid is no longer really about helping those in need, but about buying ourselves a sense of righteousness?
I grew up in an African country that swarmed with Western NGOs (when they felt it was safe). Long before band aid, Uganda had flash aid; driving 4x4s, on big dollar salaries, unimplemented strategies to save the world. Photos of world being saved mingi sana. Gone in 18 months.
It's not NGOs that lift a people out of poverty. It's respect for property rights and freedom to buy and sell what you like to whom you like.
Posted on 13 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The price of protectionist defence procurement
When I said this in the Commons on October 30 2008, I was widely criticised by certain "experts". But was I wrong?
"Defence procurement is run in the interests of the big contractors .....
In Afghanistan, helicopters allow our troops to cover distances quickly and give us tactical flexibility, yet there are not enough of them. Why? Protectionist procurement.
In a letter to me, dated 31 July last year, Lord Drayson admitted that the MOD had not run a competitive tender process to replace the Lynx. It was, he wrote
"the judgement of the department that a competition...would cause delay"
Thus the alternatives were never fully considered.
A £1 billion contract to build helicopters was awarded for a helicopter that cost almost 50 per cent. more than the alternatives, and which would not be ready until at least 2012. That is a long time to wait if one is in a minefield in southern Afghanistan.
Our armed forces in Afghanistan pay a blood price for the shortage of helicopters. The price of protectionist procurement is paid in English blood in Helmand
."
Posted on 13 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
In a pickle?
Helped by the three month old, this afternoon I pickled some of my home-grown shallots as raffle prizes to help raise funds for a local charity.
Do you suppose that it counts as a "second job"?
Posted on 12 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Defence of the Realm? A terrible truth is starting to emerge
The public spotlight focuses on why our armed forces are so poorly equipped.
The Mail on Sunday
reveals that our troop carriers are not the best. The Sunday Telegraph focuses on the shortage of helicopters. Parliament now needs to follow the press in asking what's gone wrong with defence procurement, and why.
Despite being the fourth largest defence spender in the world, that potential strength is not being converted into the firepower and kit that our armed forces actually need.
Why?
Thanks to the Defence Industrial Strategy protectionist procurement racket, our defence budget is spent in the interests of contractors. Indeed, it sometimes seems as if many key spending decisions are made as though the primary purpose of the defence budget was job creation, rather than kitting out the military.
Spending more on defence on its own is not enough to ensure our armed forces are properly equipped. We need to change the way we spend, too.
Take helicopters; £1 billion of the helicopter budget was spent on a helicopter that cost almost twice the price of proven alternatives, and despite the fact it wouldn't be ready until at least 2013. And the MoD choose not to run a competitive tender process before granting the contract. Cui bono? We need to know.
As I suggested on the floor of the Commons
, had that money been spent on some of the alternatives, there would be no shortage of helicopters in Helmand today.
I'm speaking at a seminar on defence procurement in the Commons this Tuesday - and aim to examine what's gone wrong and set out what we need to do to change it.
Posted on 12 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The poor have got poorer under Blair-Brown
If you believe government propaganda, you'd be under the impression that all that extra tax you've been paying out for the past decade has been spent on progressive ends - social justice, ending poverty, fairness and equality etc etc.
Fraser Nelson’s brilliant article in the Spectator shows that the truth is very different; despite all that extra money, the poor have got poorer, and society has grown less equal under Blair and Brown.
Here are the key facts:
… the poorest 10 per cent now have a disposable income of £87 a week, down from £96 a week eight years ago.
… Foreign-born workers account for all net job creation in the private sector since 1997. ["British jobs for British workers", eh. Gordo?]
….. there are fewer British-born people in work now than in 1997.
… youth unemployment … is now a third higher than when Labour took office.
… At no point since Labour came to power has the number on out- of-work benefits fallen below five million.
….. 1.1 million - equivalent to the population of a city the size of Birmingham - have never worked a day in the Labour years.
[Who once got Frank Field sacked for wanting to do something about it? Clue: they worked at the Treasury].
....
International surveys show school standards are declining, with the poorest hit worst
And Blair-Brown (Balls?) achieved all that while hosing away £billions of our taxes.
Here's a new progressive Conservative agenda that could pick up where Frank Field left off all those years ago.
Posted on 11 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
More G8 idiocy
Leaders of the G8 developed nations have pledged to boost food supplies, apparently.
Really? Are these G8 politicians farmers, too?
Of course not. What they mean is they'll spend lots of our money.
Food supply increases as a result of producers producing more, not politicians decreeing it. It rises when those that grow it are free to sell it to willing buyers, without tariffs; when property rights are respected and when technological innovation is allowed to progress unhindered.
Scrap the CAP and tariffs. Quit telling farmers how to run their farms. Free the agri-innovators to innovate. Respect property rights. Then you'll end world hunger. Don't and you won't.
Posted on 10 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
A great result in Frinton!
After door-knocking in Norwich in the morning, I was out campaigning yesterday afternoon in Frinton for a key local by-election. The result was a comfortable Conservative win.
The anti-Conservatives tried the old trick of fielding a single candidate - but to no avail.
In the past two months, our local Conservatives have won control of the district council, won every county council seat, and defeated a sitting coalition of long-serving councillors.
Posted on 10 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The first ever "open primary" ....
.... is being used to decide who gets to be the next MP for Totnes.
Yes, it is the first. Unlike the system of "open caucuses" previously used by the Conservatives - where any local resident can turn up at a meeting at which there is a vote - proper primaries involve every local resident taking part in either a postal or a formal ballot. This hasn't happened - until now.
It'll mean that the Tory candidate for Totnes at the next election will have been picked by a selectorate of 60,000 plus, rather than 600 or so.
Far from upsetting local party members, who still get to decide who is on the shortlist, open primaries tend to actually increase local party membership. And ensure that the winning candidate has a head start and local legitimacy.
Done properly, primaries have massive potential to open up our system of politics and wrest control back from the SW1 people.
Open primary selection was one of the key demands put forward by a group of 25 young MPs and activists in the June 2005 Direct Democracy manifesto to reform the party.
Three cheers to Totnes Conservatives!
Posted on 10 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
What's the point of the G8?
Once again, we're supposed to be impressed at the sight of our world leaders bigging it up at a G8 summit.
Yet amid all the communiqués and preening, what do these international jamborees achieve? Zip.
Politicians like G8 summits because they think it makes them look important (cracking a joke with Barack) and decisive (deciding to abolish climate change) and in control (ditto global poverty). Diplomats like these summits because it's their job to.
But the rest of us should ask if the desire by our politicians and diplomats to "internationalise" problems by demanding global solutions, isn't simply a way for decision-makers to evade real accountability to real voters at home. Easier to listen to Silvio and co than the voters back home - who might want to give you a kicking.
Is it not slightly presumptuous for national leaders - given a specific job to do by their domestic electorates – to assume that they've a global calling?
Posted on 9 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Immigration: the quango state has failed us
Today's Telegraph tells us another 144,000 asylum seekers are to be "allowed to stay in Britain because of a backlog of claims". Apparently human rights law - also known as judicial activism - is the reason many cases end up being allowed to remain.
Another day, another example of our moribund quango State at work.
Still think our political system works?
Posted on 9 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Norwich by-election UPDATE
I went on a walk about the centre of Norwich this afternoon with Chloe Smith, our local candidate, and William Hague.
Glorious sunshine. Fun volunteers. Lots of support. Why not come and join our campaign?
Posted on 8 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Tim Montgomerie nails the biased BBC brilliantly
Tim Montgomerie's must read blog shows quite how absurd and indefensible Newsnight has been over it's choice of contributors recently.
Posted on 8 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Dinosaur lashes out against meteorite
You know how the criminal justice system no longer seems to have the same sort of priorities as the local people it's supposed to serve?
Some of us think that the answer lies in having directly democratically accountable people running the local police. As opposed to the collection of quangos currently calling the shots.
Sir Hugh Orde OBE, head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, seems to disagree
.
Sir Hugh says he wants a debate.
Bring it on.
He says he wants to see more detail. Here's a start.
Posted on 8 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The dead tree world is dying. Thank goodness
Ten months after sending the literary editor of a national newspaper a review copy of The Plan, today I get an email reply.
"Thanks for sending us a copy. But we're not going to review it."
Unknown to her, in the 297 days it took her to type that, The Plan has outsold most of the books she did review. Indeed, it's been a top 30 best seller on Amazon UK and, apparently, their best selling print-on-demand book ever.
I
suspect that most stuff literary editors do review is written up at the behest of dead tree publishers and their agents.
But that's the beauty of print-on-demand publishing, long tail internet distribution and blog driven sales. It smashes the power of that tight little knot of people who once ran publishing - and decided what made it.
The web'll break up those little knots of people who dominate the press lobby, television, the arts and politics, too.
Can't wait.
Posted on 8 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Another reason to quit the EU
You know how we keep being told Britain needs influence in Europe? Apparently influence is the thing that'd give us enough clout to stop Brussels rigging the rules against us.
Doesn't seem to have worked when it comes to preventing all that pan-European financial service regulation that's about to hit the City.
There's another way to stop them rigging the rules to stuff us. It's called quitting the EU.
Posted on 7 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Peter Kellner attacks direct democracy
Peter Kellner launches a devastatingly ineffective attack on direct democracy in the July issue of Prospect.
Kellner fails to find his target perhaps because he's not bothered to understand where this new strand of Conservative thinking comes from.
He sees calls for direct democracy as a sort of ad hoc response to expense-gate.
Maybe if he'd familiarised himself with books like, you know ..... Direct Democracy: an agenda for a new model party (clue: the title) or the Localist Papers or maybe even The Plan, he'd see there's more to this new conservatism than a knee-jerk attempt to ride the tide of anti-politics. There's no shortage of literature on the subject over the past six or seven years - or of bloggers pushing it.
If he'd read up on his subject, he'd have a sense as to why direct democracy is attractive to the centre right as a means of recalibrating our politics and rebooting a leftist quango State. He'd see how localism and direct democracy are part of a coherent, over arching post-Thatcherite agenda.
He might even understand - if not agree - why some small state Conservatives see direct democracy as a means of re invigorating a spineless legislature that's failed to hold big government in check.
He fails on all counts. Instead he goes for the cheap "look-at-how-it's-failing-California" point.
I suspect that Kellner, like most on the left, can't quite bring himself to say that he hates letting the people decide for fear they'd not choose the outcomes he'd prefer. Instead he attacks referenda for their innate conservatism. Nowhere does it seem to occur to him that perhaps people, when allowed a say, generally, and wisely, dislike the grandiose schemes of politicians?
Oddly for a man who likes to call himself progressive, Kellner turns out to be extraordinarily conservative in defence of our system of nineteenth century representative democracy. When the fastest thing in the country was a horse, electing someone to sit in Westminster for several years to do your politics for you was how it had to be done. Kellner must surely see that in technical terms at least, politics no longer has to be something that a remote caste of politicians does for us?
Ultimately Kellner fails to show why direct democracy would be worse than what we currently have in SW1.
Direct democracy is attractive because it'll lead to better public policy making because it'd mean accountability. Leaving politics to politicians means it can take years for policy shortcomings to become apparent. And even when they do - see immigration, or defence procurement, or excessive business regulation, or welfare dependency - it takes years for anything to really change.
If this is the worst that can be levelled against the new conservative agenda, the left really is in trouble ....
Posted on 7 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Norwich by-election
I spent three glorious years living in Norwich. And it's great to be back.
Between thunderstorms, I spent yesterday door-knocking and leafleting. I got caught in at least one titanic downpour, and loved every minute of it...
Wandering around old haunts, it's sobering to think it was almost twenty years ago that I studented about the place. Yet the group of students I've been canvassing with hadn't even been born....
If you're reading this, and you've had enough of Gordon Brown, come join us and help get him out...
Posted on 7 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
T-shirt
A couple of months back, Tory Bear did a daft t-shirt design that made be look as if I was spoiling for a fight.
Now Leeds City Conservative has done a t-shirt design much closer to the mark; Carswell - member of Frinton and District Horticultural Society.
Pretty cool, eh ....
Posted on 7 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Why are there too few helicopters?
The press are full of comment and outrage about the shortage of helicopters in Afghanistan.
Is the answer, as some commentators would have us believe, to simply spend more on helicopters? Perhaps, as some of the brighter pundits have clocked, it's also a question of how we spend the money.
Fact; billions have been spent on designing and building lift helicopters that will not be ready for several more years. That money could have been spent buying tried and tested off-the-shelf alternatives. If it had, not only would the helicopters be serving in Helmand today, but we'd only need to have spent about 2/3rds the amount.
As I said in a Commons debate, our Defence Industrial Strategy protectionist procurement racket is letting down our armed forces. We owe it to our armed forces to change it.
Posted on 6 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
There's only one way to cut quangos and red tape
"Cut red tape!" goes the cry. "Bonfire of the quangos" runs the cliché.
Find me a politician that has not talked about both. Yet when the shooting starts, find me a politician who hasn't reflexively looked to set up a new quango to shield them from blame. Thus, for all the talk, does more power end up with unaccountable officialdom.
In this age of anti-politics, an increasingly cynical electorate needs to be told not merely what a politician seeks to achieve. They need to be given some indication that the politician does actually know how it might be done. It's true that mega detailed policy wonkery alone is not going to swing the polls. But against a zeitgeit of anti-politics, politicians who can't convey that sense of how have a credibility issue.
Thus when pushed over how to deregulate, many politicians trot out something about "sun set clauses" and "regulatory impact assessment". Blah blah.
Let's be frank. They've not really delivered less quangos or fewer rules, have they?
A radically different approach is required; make the regulator accountable.
If every quango chief had to have their budget annually approved by the relevant Commons select committee on a no-approval-no-money basis, we might start seeing quangos made accountable for the rules they impose on the rest of us. We might, at last, be able to show how the quango State routinely wields a regulatory sledge-hammer to miss a nut. We might even see the plug pulled entirely from some quangos, and see that the sky doesn't actually fall in.
It might also give Parliament more purpose.
Posted on 5 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Horticultural competition in Frinton UPDATE
Last week I had four entries in the Frinton Horticultural Society summer show. To my surprise, my yellow rose won a prize, as did my peas (which I've been munching on all week! - the peas that is, not the roses).
My sweetpeas were an also ran. Less said about my wonky broad beans, the better!
Posted on 5 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
American independence day
Congratulations America.
Any chance we might bring home the revolution?
The rights and freedoms Franklin and co fought for back in 1776 were the rights and freedoms of Englishmen. They rebelled against an overbearing, Europhile elite that taxed them to the hilt, prevented them trading freely with whom they wished, and took no notice of their democratic assemblies. Sound familar?
Posted on 4 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Should the Bank of England set interest rates?
There's interesting comment. And then there's the fascinating.
Jamie Whyte writing in the Times looks at the role of the state in setting interest rates.
Looks like Austrian school of economics is set for a come back. There is hope.
Posted on 4 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Don't prosecute mums and dads for wanting school choice
A council will not now be prosecuting a mum for trying to get her child into a school of her choice. Good.
It's disgraceful that we have this system of rationing in the first place. We wouldn't put up with the state rationing jobs or houses, so why do we tolerate them telling us where and how to educate our kids?
It's the local education authorities that should be in the dock for failing to provide a suitable school - not hard working mums and dads.
Rather than use the law against mums and dads, parents need a legal right to control their child's share of local authority funding if they're not happy with what's on offer from the council.
Posted on 3 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Sir Michael gets the internet. Innit
Sir Michael White of the Guardian wrote a particularly snide blog about Daniel Hannan 's YouTube hit. Ignore the personal unpleasantness in his remarks - what was odd was how dismissive he was of the new medium.
He wrote a similarly narky blog when I first suggested we modernise the Commons "for the age of YouTube". Again, it was his off-handness about the internet and how it might change politics that stands out.
But then yesterday, His Lordship (Resignation honours list?) apparently told an audience that this internet web, blog thingy is in fact terribly important. "... the most important since Gutenberg's in 1440 ..."
That's the thing about this internet web, blog thingy, Sir Michael. It's not just that people can bite back. But it's a sort of giant wiki-bull detector. Meaning that folk can hold you to account for what you say and point to the inconsistencies. Journalists as well as politicians.
Posted on 2 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Soaring crime shows criminal justice system is not working
According to data published today, the past decade has seen a 77 per cent increase in murders, robberies, assaults and sexual offences.
Yet it's not for want of headline grabbing initatives. There's been no let up in unfulfilled promises to fight crime. Just an endless succession of Home Secretaries making "get tough" announcements that never seem to change anything.
Perhaps it's time for a radically different approach?
Instead of another Home Secretary MP making excuses on behalf of a failing state machinery, why not make the criminal justice system answer locally for how it performs?
Rather than a cozy wee Police Authority taking tea with the chief constable once a month, why not elect the person who sets the local police forces' priorities instead?
Instead of a local public prosecutor, who rountinely fails to bring cases against young thugs and who abandons almost one in ten cases due to administrative incompetence, why not vote in a prosecutor who's on your side?
In place of a probation service that believes rehabilitation is more important than punishment, why don't you get to decide who runs probation in your town?
Just a thought.
Posted on 2 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Zac Goldsmith calls for ....
... direct democracy in today's Evening Standard.
He makes the case very well indeed, too.
Posted on 2 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Threat to cut defence budget
The FT reports that defence spending could be cut by 10 - 15%. Apparently, the Royal United Services Institute fear that this could be done by cutting back on the size of the armed forces and scaling back what it does.
Why doesn't the RUSI suggest cutting back on the number of desk bound Admirals? (We've more Admirals than ships - apparently*) Or the army of pen pushers in MoD? (Too many officials, not enough fighting men) Or the insanely wasteful procurement projects that see money siphoned off by big contractors? (Why are we spending twice as much on a helicopter than we need to?)
It's not the total size of the defence budget that 's the number one problem. It's how it gets spent that needs changing.
* - To find out if there really are more Admirals in the Royal Navy than ships, I've just tabled two straight Parliamentary question to the minister. Expect Sir Humphrey to begin by saying "Depends what one means by a ship .... how one defines an admiral ... blah blah".
Posted on 2 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
BBC needs a new Business Editor
Remember how the BBC's Robert Peston used to laud Gordo for his handling of the economic crisis? Too little scepticism. Minimal effort to explain to viewers that there might be alternatives.
Remember how Peston infamously dismissed the idea - mooted by the German Finance Minister - that Britain just might not be able to borrow her way out of a debt crisis?
Indeed, the Peston scripts could've been written in Downing Street.
Turns out the great Gordo's remedy wasn't quite all the BBC Business Editor bigged it up to be, eh?
It's not the wisdom of hindsight Peston needed, but a little understanding of the Austrian school of economics. And perhaps a little distance from his Number 10 contacts.
The Commons got a new Speaker when it became clear the old one wasn't up to the job and was too close to the executive.
So. When's the BBC going to advertise for a new Business Editor?
Posted on 2 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Economic slump?
Our Prime Minister keeps telling us he's taking action to avoid a 1930s-style slump.
Turns out the economy shrank 5% last year. The biggest slump since the 1930s.
Does he still think we can borrow our way out of debt? You can't live beyond your means in any age.
Posted on 2 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Has Parliament begun to get off its knees?
First, they ban the worst excesses of the expense system. Second, they elect a new Speaker by free and fair election.
Today, the Commons defeats key clauses in the executive's Bill designed to put a quango in charge of our democratically elected representatives. Clause 6 and 10 of the Bill ave gone.
It's not simply that MPs are coming to their senses. MPs are thinking and acting as a legislature - not whips fodder.
The mood these past few days has been different. Decisions are being made, not rubber-stamped, in the chamber. This is a glimpse of what our Commons could be.
Posted on 1 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
June Stats: 60,909,258 people in the UK didn't read my blog last month
The start of a new month - a time when bloggers traditionally let us all know quite how many zillions of readers they have. The trick seems to be to do this in a nonchalant "I'm-not-really-interested-but-since-you're-asking" type way.
In reality, I suspect some bloggers are as selective as Treasury ministers in their choice of data to give out.
The good news is that I had 36,654 individual folk on my blog in June. I estimate that leaves a mere 60,909,258 people in the UK who are not regular readers - yet.
Using Google analytics, I know that many thousands of my readers are concentrated where it counts - in my Essex constituency. Indeed, it's a double digit portion of the local electorate - and rising fast.
The big, big change in politics that’s happened since I was elected in 2005 is the ability to communicate directly with thousands of people. It's so recent, we’ve yet to fully understand the implications.
Give it a while, and I imagine blogging will be a prerequsite for politicians - if it isn't already.
Don't tell Sir Bufton - he's unlikely to read it here.
Posted on 1 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Gordo flunks it
Watch our PM explain how a 0% rise is an increase.
Hattip: Guido Fawkes
Posted on 1 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Gordon Brown's porkie pies
Gordon Brown says things he knows to be untrue. And which he knows that we know are untrue.
Yet like a lying school boy, he persists in the deception.
He did this over the Lisbon Treaty European Constitution.
He did it over the scale of the debt crisis and depth of the recession.
And, as Fraser Nelson brilliantly observes, he's doing it again when he insists on telling us that he'd increase public service spending year after year.
Not only did Brown think it acceptable to hire Damian McBride. He also says things he knows not to be true. Such is the character of our unelected PM.
Posted on 1 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell