I've just discovered digital photo frames
If, like me, you take hundreds of digital photos, you'll know that many of the best never get displayed.
Somehow, even with a home printer, they seem doomed to live only on a memory stick. Until now ...
Whoever had the idea of digital photo frames is a genius. Overcoming my suspicion, I bought a cheap one - and it's brilliant. All my zillions of digial photos on random display - really cool.
The only problem is that the model I have seems to emit a high pitched squeak. Is that common to all digital photo frames?
Posted on 29 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Gordo backs my recall proposal
Great to see Gordo announce that he wants local voters to have a right to recall wayward MPs.
He'll have his first chance to vote for it on October 13th, when I introduce my 10 Minute Rule Bill in the Commons.
He will be voting for it, won't he?
If the the Great Ditherer is serious about it, we can have it on the statue book by the end of October.
Posted on 29 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
What free market?
Over on ConHome, my old friend Kwasi Kwarteng argues that Britain needs a manufacturing base - and pure free markets cannot be relied on to deliver it.
The problem is, we've not got the free markets.
Like Kwasi, I've change my mind about the loss of manufacturing. Like him, I now believe that deindustrialisation - far from being a natural, nothing-to-worry-about, organic process - is bad.
But we've not lost our industrial base because of the free market. It's happened because with all our healthandsaftey rules and massive regulation, fewer and fewer people are prepared to bother making things in the West.
Even if you are prepared to beg the permission of public officials in order to run your own business, they'll only then expropriate most of the wealth you then create.
Posted on 29 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Are Americans ignorant about climate change?
The US is "ignorant about climate change" according to Prof John Schellnhuber, climate change activist from the Potsdam Institute.
Perhaps we should send the Americans copies of Prof Ian Plimer's book on the subject, Heaven and Earth, to enlighten them? Look at it as a sort of reverse Marshall-aid-for-the-mind.
If we did, those "climate illiterate" Americans would learn how some scientists are of the view that:
FACT 1: Global temperatures are not determined by the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
FACT 2: The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is largely determined by geology - and human activity has only a very marginal effect.
Somehow I don't think that is what Prof Schellnhuber means. When he dismisses the yanks as ignorant, what he really means is that they don't all agree with him. And their public officials - being more democratically accountable - aren't willing to surrender public policy to supranational technocrats and "experts".
Schellnhuber seems especially irked by global opinion polls showing that those pesky yanks don't seem to realise what a problem climate change is.
But surely, good science is not about the weight of opinion, but about the weight of fact and evidence?
There is a growing gap between public policy positions on climate change, and the supporting science - but not in the way that Prof Schellnhuber seems to imagine. In the free market of ideas, expect a correction soon ....
Posted on 29 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Locally accountable policing in Leicestershire
Temporary Chief Constable Chris Eyre of Leicestershire Police is reported to have said that he's "extremely sorry" that police failed to help Ms Pilkington and her daughter.
Ms Pilkington, you'll remember, was hounded by a mob for years - and despite many, many appeals to the authorities, eventually killed herself in despair.
If we had properly accountable policing, temporary Chief Constable Eyre would indeed be very temporary.
But Mr Eyre isn't really accountable to local people in any meaningful way. Instead he answers to quangos, like the Independent Police Complaints Authority. They'll be investigating, and will no doubt want to be certain that all the right boxes got ticked.
Or to quangos like the
local Police Authority, who, despite what the Association of Police Authorities tell us, don't seem to "give people a say in policing".
After this, does anyone outside of ACPO seriously believe that the existing model of police accountability works?
Posted on 28 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Martin Bell's new book
I first met Martin Bell at the height of the scandal over MPs expenses. The insurgency against the Speaker was gathering momentum - and I wanted to pick his brains over a coffee.
It was clear to both of us sitting in the Pugin Room that afternoon that ousting the Speaker was only a start. I am, therefore, especially interested to read Martin's new book - A very British revolution - in which he sets out his ideas on where we need to go from here.
High on his list of priorities are Open Primary selection to decide who gets to sit in Parliament in the first place. As he puts it, the current closed shop system "favours the promotion of rubber stamps". (Martin very generously acknowledges the role of "the influential book The Plan" by those two "against-the-grain Conservatives" Hannan and Carswell.
Martin rightly recognises that if the Commons is to have dignity and purpose, it needs to act as a proper legislature. And that means asserting itself against the executive, which means curbing the power of party whips.
Introduce Open Primaries for all MPs, however, and you'd largely solve this later problem. With our closed shop, one-party fiefdom system at present, even in a landslide year like 1997, only 3 in 10 MPs stand to lose their seat at the hands of the voter.
Any organisation in which 7 out of 10 people felt they had a job-for-life would under perform. The House of Commons is no exception. From that, all the rottenness, indolence and smug, SW1 self-regard follows.
Four months on, the Speak may have gone, but the old Westminster order remains intact. A renewed insurgency is needed.
On October 13th, I'm introducing a Ten Minute Rule Bill to allow voters in every constituency to petition their local returning officer to organise a Totnes-type Open Primary - or to trigger a by-election against any wayward wastrel.
To costly, you say? By piggy-backing the ballots on to existing European or local elections, my proposal would reduce the cost from £thousands to a few hundred.
Martin Bell is backing the Bill. And I'm recommending that everyone buys his book.
Posted on 28 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Tribune - you must read this....
The Tribune has a piece mentioning the "odious" Douglas Carswell. It's by the delightful Mr Routledge.
Do please read it here!
Posted on 27 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Homer Simpson politics
Gordon Brown's latest gimmick is a Fiscal Responsibility Act. Down in Brighton, his side-kicks are spinning about how this is going to "legally commit current and future ministers to bring down the debt".
Sounds tough and impressive, eh? At last, we're all supposed to think, action to tackle the reckless level of public borrowing.
Except it's balls. A legalistic mirage.
Fiscal responsibility means calling a halt to the executive's insatiable appetite for our tax pounds. Not passing laws for no purpose other than PR.
Fiscal responsibility by the executive branch of government is not something that can be achieved by the executive alone. Ministers don't rein in ministers. Fiscal responsibility is a consequence of external discipline imposed on government - preferably by our elected legislature, rather than a quango.
If any politician is serious about fiscal responsibility, they need to ensure that ministers and quangocrats once again answers to those we elect for how they spend our money.
An Act, put through our supine legislature by the executive, telling us how virtuous with our money ministers are going to be, is worthless.
Gordon Brown might as well pass a law telling us he's going to abolish rainy days or Bad Things. It's Homer Simpson - without Homer's endearing realisation at the end of each episode that he's been wrong.
Posted on 27 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Europe is no longer a settled question
"The EU is too important to scrap" writes Euro-academic, Simon Hix, in today's Telegraph.
I imagine Ottomans once said much the same of their empire. No doubt plenty of the Viennese elite once had difficulty imagining a world without the Austro-Hungarian empire.
A vastly wiser observation was David Howell's op ed piece yesterday; "Are the institutions of the 20th century [in which] we take pride in belonging ... [like] .... NATO, the EU, the United Nations Security Council, the World Trade Organization - the best channels for projecting our aims?" he asked. And he's not the only one asking it.
Might it be that many supranational quangos are now days run for, by and in the interests of the diplomats and technocrats who inhabit them?
"Our policy won't ever be made for the convenience of diplomats" William Hague tells today's Telegraph. Quite.
Posted on 26 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
A law to establish free schools?
According to the Times Education Supplement, the Conservatives are already hard at work on a draft Education Bill.
A humble backbencher, I had a first stab at drafting my own version of a Bill to establish "free schools" on pages 180-182 of The Plan. My Bill is a little abbreviated - as the Bill would need to touch on at least eight other major bits of legislation passed since 1986, which would be a book in itself.
Also, I deliberately kept out lots of stuff about planning regulations, Charity Commission et al.
Posted on 25 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Falling £
The pound has slumped in value by almost a quarter since 2007. We're close to parity with the Euro.
Surprised? You shouldn't be.
If government prints more pounds - so-called "quantitative easing" - guess what happens? The relative worth of each pound falls.
Quantitative easing means there are to be an additional 175 billion more pounds out there.
The result is that the value of our currency won't just fall in relation to other currencies. Expect it to fall in relation to stuff you want to buy.
It's called inflation.
Posted on 25 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
More hot air about climate change?
After blogging about Ian Plimer's brilliant book on climate change - Heaven and Earth - I keep getting folk posting comments telling me how wrong he is.
Not just wrong, but totally wrong, apparently.
All his facts made up, some suggest. His opinions presented without supporting evidence.
In fact Plimer's book is one of the most heavily footnoted publications you'll find. One thing he doesn't seem short of is evidence to back up what he says.
Of course, none of those shouting about how wrong Plimer is seem to take the trouble to show how and why he is wrong. More often they link to another site that merely regurgitates the consensus on man-made climate change.
It makes me wonder if belief in climate change serves the purpose of a secular religion to some. It puts man-kind at the centre of creation, while Plimer seems to be suggesting our position is far more humble and peripheral.
Climate change debate aside, I recommend you read the book. It's a fascinating history of our planet regardless of anything else.
Posted on 25 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
A stonking by-election win in Clacton!
Yesterday saw a crucial local by-election in my constituency. Whoever won it would, in effect, control the local Tendring district council.
Pam Sambridge, our brilliant local candidate, won handsomely with 55% of the vote against Labour (12%), Lib Dems (27%) and the Greens (6%).
I remember not so very long ago, us local Conservatives only just won by a dozen or so votes. And not long before that, we were down to a rump.
A wonderfully fun campaign, too. Lots of helpers with the leaflets - and the sky Tory blue!
Posted on 25 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Hoard of Anglo Saxon gold found ...
... reports the BBC.
Don't tell Gordon Brown. He'll nick it, before swapping it for foreign pieces of paper.
Like he did last time.
Posted on 24 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Crown Prosecution Service: unaccountable and useless?
Yesterday, the man who presides over possibly the most monumentally ineffective part of our criminal justice system, CPS chief Keir Starmer, sent me an email.
Today, I sent him my reply;
From:
CARSWELL, Douglas
Sent: 24 September 2009 09:34
To: 'Keir.Starmer@cps.gsi.gov.uk'
Subject: RE: Message from Keir Starmer QC, Director of Public Prosecutions- CPS Interim Policy on Assisted Suicide
Dear Mr Starmer,
Unlike Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, who instructed you to issue new guidelines on assisted suicide, I have no settled opinion on the subject.
What I do know for certain is that on two occasions when proposals to change the law have been presented to Parliament, they have been rejected. Lord Joffe's Euthanasia Bill was rejected by the upper House. This summer, Lord Falconer's initiative to lift the threat of prosecution met a similar fate.
I also understand that it is the view of both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition that there should be no change in the law.
Please can you explain why, given that Parliament has specifically rejected such a change, your consultation regarding guidance opens the possibility of such a change taking effect?
If your consultation does lead to a change in the law on assisted suicides, it will not have been done by democratic means, but by judicial activism. ....
I look forward to hearing from you.
Douglas Carswell MP
-----------------------------------------------
Thanks to CPS incompetence, 7% of cases it handled have been abandoned “in error”. The number of wrong-doers aged 14-18 escaping justice has risen as prosecutions have fallen by more than half.
Remember New York public prosecutor, Rudy Giuliani; Only when public prosecutors are made accountable to the public, are we going to get a criminal justice system that’s on our side.
Posted on 24 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Brown's bull?
One of the reasons Gordon Brown has such a dreadful reputation is his inability to admit to inconvenient truths.
Take the decision to scale-down Britain's nuclear deterrent. You, me and all the folk sitting in my crowded train carriage as I type this, know the government's tax revenue is collapsing. If there's to be one less Trident sub, we'd all know it's because we can't afford it.
We might like the fact. Or - like me - we may hate it. But we know it's down to the economics.
Yet Brown is apparently about to bull about the world stage claiming axing one of our Tridents is all about a nuclear-free world. He's about to present a negative as a triumphant positive, as if we were fools.
Rather than level with us about economic reality, like a school boy, he concocts some elaborate, implausible nonsense.
What is so tragic for Brown, in personal terms, is that someone with such a character flaw should be PM today, a time when voters - jaded and distrustful of all politicians - crave the authentic. It's sad for him, tragic for us and disastrous for Britain's standing.
Posted on 23 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
BBC hot air about climate change
Listening to James Robins on the BBC news at 10. Dubious claims about climate change repeated as fact.
Again, it was lazily asserted that human CO2 emissions are causing climate change - no mention that pre-industrial temperatures were often far higher.
Once more, the Beeb implied CO2 flooded New Orleans - no mention the city subsided a meter over the three years preceding hurricane Katrina. Lord Stern's report described as "respected" - not by Ian Plimer, eh?
Plimer's brilliant book, Heaven and Earth, makes the current consensus on climate change unsustainable. Watch this space.....
Posted on 22 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
A bumper year for blackberry pickers
Folk say it's been a bumper year for blackberries.
(The fruit, not the mobile 'phones - in case any metropolitan-types are reading).
At the last count, I'd over 30 jars of home-made jam stored away in the kitchen. And I'm due to be giving a local talk about jam-making, too.
I love this time of year!
Posted on 22 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Coal, energy crisis and over regulation
Apparently a steam train in south Wales cannot use coal mined 3 miles away, thanks to regulations on how coal can be transported. Instead, it must import coal from Siberia.
I used to believe coal mines in Britain were shut down because coal mining had grown hopeless uneconomic. Geology and economics had combined, I understood, to make it impossible for our heavily unionised coal industry to compete.
Now I realise that coal mining in Britain only started to look that way after the mines had all been taken into state ownership.
Mines that had in some places existed for centuries, closed within few decades of state ownership. And it wasn't because of the geology.
Once private property, the mines were expropriated by the government. Poor management, a lack of innovation and massive over regulation followed. The bitter industrial dispute that followed in the 1980s was the last tragic episode – a bitter squabble over a corpse.
Today we face an energy crisis. As we do so, reflect on how mining activity seems to have moved East. China is now a mining giant - it's mining companies world leaders, as once were our own.
Has mining moved East because the coal seams have mysteriously shifted? Of course not. Britain still sits on billions of tons of accessible coal.
The reason our coal isn’t being mined is because of us, not because of the geology. It’s not layers of rock that stop us reaching the coal, but layers of state regulation and EU / government imposed costs.
As they’ve discovered in south Wales, if you over regulate the society that lives above the coal seams, it’ll never manage to get to the coal.
Posted on 22 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
How representative is Westminster?
When lefties talk about making the Commons more representative, they invariably mean political correctness and quotas. The one thing they don't mean is more democracy to allow the people to decide what representatives they want for themselves.
For example, I see 40% of my fellow citizens now want out of the EU.
Last time I checked, I think only 8 other MPs in Westminster (besides myself) have thus far explicitly said the same. That's 1.4%.
More democracy – in the shape of open primaries and recall – would make the Commons not merely look more like the country it was supposed to represent. It would ensure the Commons thought and voted more like the rest of us, too.
Posted on 21 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
When was the criminal justice system ever on Fiona Pilkington's side?
It would seem that there's some sort of public affairs strategy underway aimed at derailing Conservative plans for directly elected police chiefs; professional lobbyists have been engaged, public money is being spent. Is it coincidence that lots of police chiefs are suddenly giving speeches about it?
Brace yourself - there'll be plenty of misrepresentation ("It'll mean politicians overseeing operational matters!"). Scare stories ("it'll put extremists in charge!"). And behind the scenes arm twisting....
But just remember the case of Fiona Pilkington. Read Philip Johnston's piece about it in today's Telegraph - and feel angry.
Fiona Pilkington killed herself and her daughter, it would appear, after years of torment at the hands of a mob - and despite dozens of approaches to the authorities. Shockingly, prosecutions never appear to have been successfully brought against her tormentors.
To whom does the Crown Prosecution Service answer? Lawyers like Keir Starmer, interviewed in today's Guardian? Clearly not to highly vulnerable people being taunted endlessly by mobs.
Posted on 21 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Medieval banquet
I was a guest at a Medieval Banquet the other day. The menu was medieval, so no potatoes or tomatoes or - most distressing of all for me - chocolate pudding. Isn't it extraordinary how so many foods we take for granted are actually rather recent exotic imports?
It was warm, too. Just like during the Middle Ages, when the climate was warmer (global warming ultras, please see Ian Plimer).
What interested me most was the band. They played an assortment of musical instruments - bagpipes, drums, pipes - from the Middle Ages, including something I'd never heard of before called a "hurdy gurdy". A mechanical violin, it's really very ingenious....
In case you are wondering, I resisted the temptation to dress as Baldrick.
Posted on 20 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Are we the party of the Levellers?
Guardian columnist, Jonathan Freedland, once wrote a book called Bring Home the Revolution. He suggested rather interestingly that we should bring back to England radical ideas about government, which had prospered across the Atlantic - but been extinguished back at home.
A monarchist, I disagree with Freedland's ideas on becoming a republic.
Nor do I think we need to import the American revolution. Rather, we need to complete the English one.
Look at the modern quango state, with remote officials making the key decisions that affect our lives. There's some unfinished business to do with decentralising power and ensuring those with power are made properly answer to those we vote for.
Read this fascinating blog by Andrew Sparrow quoting David Cameron praising Tony Benn.
Posted on 19 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
1001 posts on my blog
This is my 1,001st blog post ..... and I can't, for once, think of anything to say .....
Posted on 19 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
James Macintyre's New Statesman article
Wow! There's ill-judged articles on the blogosphere. And then there's this article by James Macintyre that was published on the New Statesman website - before being pulled.
Whoever pulled the piece seems to have acted with good reason. Read it for yourself.
Macintyre wrote "I believe the Conservative Party is institutionally racist." And then some.
He quotes from a blog Daniel Hannan - who backed Obama for President - wrote a few days previously. In his blog, Hannan stands out as one of the few Conservative commentators to suggest that perhaps Jimmy Carter had a point when he suggested that there could be an element of racism behind some of the recent attacks on the US President. Yet Macintyre seems to twist what Hannan wrote to imply that it is Hannan who is somehow racist. Extraordinary. And really quite shocking.
In the short time before someone decided to pull the piece, Macintyre's own readers panned him.
Macintyre mentions how he'll be returning to the subject of Daniel Hannan on his blog in future weeks. If Macintyre has an ounce of sense, he'll return to the subject immediately with a genuine and sincere apology.
Posted on 18 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Muse - I'm going to buy the album
Tory Bear has decided it for me. I'm going to get Muse's new album.
I'd debated the pros and cons - and got a few suggestions from readers.
But then I read this on Tory Bear, and will buy the album this weekend.
After my busy MP Advice Surgery and the hundred other things I've got on this weekend in Clacton.....
Posted on 18 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Carswell under fierce attack
You've got to read this hilarious "attack" on me by some Labour supporting site. They have a pop at me for daring to suggest that the Fabian Society has used a design that earlier appeared on the cover of my best selling book, The Plan.
Why's it so funny?
Well, first, just take a look at the two designs.
Second, this "attack" - with it's shrill, old-politics style - merely serves to draw attention to what's happened (Homer Simpson Doh!).
But most important, it gives me the chance to mention that I've written a best selling book. Again.
Yes, really, I know. It's called The Plan ...... And lots of folk are taking inspiration from it. There's even this group called the Fabian Society, you see, and you'll never guess, but our front cover .....
Posted on 17 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
US to scrap European missile defence shield
The world just got a little less safe. Or rather, the European bit of it.
With lots of nasty regimes out there, developing things that can go bang on an epic, industrial scale, we ought to be on our guard. We ought not merely welcome the US defence shield, but do everything in our power to contribute towards its success.
Instead, in the manner of a welfare dependent, continental Europe takes vast defence handouts from the US - giving little back in return. See Afghanistan.
Like a spoilt child, Europe resents America, yet is unwilling to shoulder more of the defence burden. But without America, those Iranian missiles become a bit less distant. Moscow seems a little nearer. The world, and all the tyrants in it, more hostile.
Do you suppose it felt a little bit like this in the western Roman world in about AD 300-and-something?
Posted on 17 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Doffing my cap
Appears I'm now on nodding terms with a hardline leftie Labour MP, otherwise famous for blanking Tories.
Perhaps he likes my anti-SW1 stance? Maybe he's a secret fan of this blog? Or maybe he's just going slightly ga-ga and confuses me for one of the comrades?
Should I be alarmed or flattered?
Posted on 17 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Defence Industrial Strategy looks wobbly?
Is protectionist defence procurement going to be an early casualty of collapsing public finances?
Might it be that the days of spending £27 million on a helicopter that could be bought off the shelf for £ 9 million are coming to an end?
Not if certain defence contractors and their lobbyists have their way. As I've suggested once or twice before, protectionist procurement suits a lot of corporate interests - even if it short changes our armed forces.
But big buck lobbying cannot conceal the truth:
If we put the interests of our armed forces first, rather than those of defence contractors, this year's £37.7 billion defence budget could buy our troops an awful lot more kit.
Posted on 16 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Spoke at the Churchill club at a Westminster lunch today ..
.... after which a signed copy of my book, The Plan, was auctioned for charity for £175.
Yes, it's true. In case you'd not heard, I've written this book you see, and ....
Posted on 16 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Where did all that money go?
Democratic YouTube broadcasting is going to be far, far more effective than traditional party election broadcasts at the next election.
Posted on 16 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Quangos are not the guardians of liberty
Apparently the Conservatives are proposing to roll back the surveillance state. Sounds good.
We're reaffirming our commitment to scrapping ID cards. Great.
But apparently many of the proposals involve giving the Information Commissioner more powers. Hummm .....
One proposal would, in effect, mean that new laws would have to be approved by the Information Commissioner. Double hummm....
It'd mean (another) unelected official getting a veto over our elected law-makers - with, in effect, supreme power over those we vote for. Yet more hummm ...
I'm just not sure how any of this ties in with whole renewing democracy agenda. Giving the Information Commissioner the power to strike laws down is not exactly restoring purpose to Parliament, is it?
And surely the surveillance society has come about precisely because we are governed by a quango state, where executive power is not subject to effective scrutiny? It is, after all, unelected officials who've been pushing for ID cards for years, no? So how does giving more powers to quangocrats solve the problem?
Creative public policy making is about more than establishing quangos charged with delivering certain outcomes. Liberty is not something delivered by a commission. Nor by judges empowered by the ECHR. It is, more subtly, an absence of unchecked, arbitrary power.
Preserving our liberties can only be done with any effective legislative check on the powerful. That means shaking up the jobs-for-life system in SW1. It means democratising law -making, not give technocrats vetoes.
Posted on 16 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Labour luvie keeps digging
Spotted on my way into the House of Commons this morning; Tony Robinson and the Channel 4 Time Team conducting an archeological dig near Parliament.
What do you think this Labour luvie, and former-NEC member, was hoping to find?
The fossilised remains of Labour's credibility? Fragments of evidence that the left was once alive? Traces to show that the British left, now hopelessly allied to quangocrats and the political elite, was once a progressive force?
Posted on 16 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Learning to love the EU?
According to its chief commissar, Jose Manuel Barroso, the credit crisis is forcing Eurosceptics to "think twice".
Jose, my unelected friend. There's only one way I'd ever tolerate the EU. And that's once Britain's withdrawn from it.
Only when you and your unaccountable officials are no longer governing my country might we be friends ....
Posted on 16 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Lefties copy The Plan?
I'm used to having my ideas cut and pasted. There's no shortage of folk in SW1 ready to present other people's work as their own.
But, as the great Ronald Reagan said, there's no limit on the amount of good you can do in politics - if you don't mind who gets the credit (mind you, he ended up in the Oval Office).
That aside, I do think that the Labour party conference guide - featuring this Fabian Society advertisement - takes this "imitation-is-flattery" to extremes.
On the left is the Fabian Society poster. On the right is the cover of the best selling book I wrote with Daniel Hannan.
With it's radical ideas on open primaries, direct democracy, localism, directly elected police chiefs, consumerist choice in public services, it's not just Conservatives that are following The Plan. Perhaps the left will do more than use designs that first appeared on our book cover?
What more proof do you need? The British left has run out of ideas. The centre right is where the interesting thinking is happening.
Posted on 15 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Breakfast with Nigel Lawson
Breakfast at the Legatum / AEI event listening to Nigel Lawson on the financial crisis.
How to regulate financial institutions?
He suggests a distinction between retail, vanilla banking - which one would regulate - and more innovative investment banks. The former the state would prevent going to the wall. But not the later.
I'm interested in the idea of some sort of regulation-for-lender-of-last-resort guarantees policy.
Or put it another way. I hate the idea of free-wheeling bankers being bailed out by taxpayers. If you're free to leverage beyond common sense, you should be free to live with the consequences.
Private profit, but socialised risk is offensive and wrong - and economic insanity.
It would've been totally wrong to bail out Lehmans a year ago.
Posted on 15 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Don't call it an open primary when it's not
The Conservatives held an open primary to select their parliamentary candidate in Totnes. They held a similar process - sort of - to select Boris as their London mayoral candidate.
They have not used open primaries in any other selection process.
Meetings at which any local resident can turn up and vote are called open caucuses. They are not open primaries - a full ballot of all local people.
While a massive improvement on traditional closed-shop selection, open caucuses are not the full monty. More risky, caucuses also have far fewer advantages than proper primaries.
16,000 people took part in the Totnes open primary. Only a few hundred normally take part in open caucuses. They are not the same thing.
Posted on 14 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Thought for the day
After a decade of Labour, we've higher levels of public debt than Scandinavia. And lower levels of public service than Texas.
Progressive government? It's been an utter disaster.
Posted on 14 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Foreign Office the worst quango of all
Foreign policy is too important to be left to the Foreign Office.
Just see what happens when it is; secret deals to ensure Pc Yvonne Fletcher's killers are never brought to justice. The Lockerbie bomber set free.
That's not realpolitik. It's revolting.
Thanks to loopholes in our crumbling constitution, Sir Humphrey Appleby-types don't just get to decide on our overseas relations. They can make such arrangements binding on the rest of us. See Lisbon Treaty.
Again and again, whenever we are sold a lousy, grubby deal, we're made to think it's realpolitik, dear boy. The implication is that it might sometimes be unpalatable - but it's all in the national interest.
But who decides "the national interest"? Career diplomats, corporations, or the rest of the nation?
It's time all senior diplomatic appointment were subject to Parliamentary confirmation hearings - with proper democratic ratification of any deals Sir Humphrey strikes in our name.
Posted on 14 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Muse - to buy the new album or not?
I hear that Muse has a new album out.
Seeing as I still work out at the gym to Black Holes & Revelations (spotify here), perhaps I should invest in it?
Maybe, like other follow-up albums, it's not worth it? How long until it's on spotify?
Much dilemma.
Posted on 13 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The state cannot make kids safer
Anyone working close to children will need to register with the Independent Safeguarding Authority. But why does anyone presume this makes anyone safer?
When the state had complete control over a child in Haringey, they sent the foster child to live with a terrorist family.
Posted on 12 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Is there a secret plan to derail localism?
Fearful of Conservative plans to make policing more democratically accountable, certain senior police chiefs seem determined to derail the proposal.
Is this a deliberate and coordinated strategy, or just coincidence?
The Guardian reports that Ian Johnston, president of the Police Superintendents' Association, will next week lay into the proposal for directly elected police commissioners. This follows Sir Hugh Orde's ill-judged broadside last week.
Several months ago we saw a number of fatuous scare stories placed in newspapers, including the Times.
We already know that public money has been used by the Association of Police Authorities in an effort to quash more democratic accountability. For the first time since Labour created this quango, the APA is apparently attending party conferences - suggesting they're ramping up their campaign against localism.
What role do you think that the unaccountable, publicly-funded Association of Chief Police Officers is playing in all this?
If this is part of deliberate plan to derail localism, it is extraordinarily ill-advised. In the age of old politics, such backroom fixing may well have worked. Today it is totally counter productive. Opinion forming in SW1 has been democratised.
Posted on 12 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The faces of failure
Labour's problems go a lot deeper than Gordon Brown.
I just flicked over to PoliticsHome.com, and this was the image of the five latest government ministers to have been broadcast today; Mandelson, Miliband, Adonis, Mandelson, McFadden.
McFadden
What does this random line up tell us?
Despite there being 356 Labour MPs in the Commons, 3/5ths of the mugshots happen to be of unelected ministers. Decades of shortlist candidate selection, coupled with crony machine politics, has cronically depleted the talent pool within the Labour parliamentary party.
After years issuing identikit MPs with bogus, cliche-laden "lines-to-take", what do you end up with? You can't find one able to string a sensible sentence together, without being told what to say. Having promoted loyal automatons who regurgitate their lines with Hazel-Blears-like devotion, what happens? You end up having to bring in someone like Mandy to do the talking.
And which face in this line up would you trust? With the sole exception of Adonis, I wouldn't trust a single word said by any of them. I can't imagine most of their Labour colleagues would either.
It's not just Brown. It's Labour.
Posted on 11 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
iTory: new Conservatism will benefit from the internet
Daniel Hannan has a first-class article in today's Telegraph. It shows how Conservatism and the new Conservative agenda stand to gain from the radical changes to our lives that the internet will bring.
A must read.
Posted on 11 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Conflict looms with the judges
Sooner or later there is going to be an almighty bust up between a democratically elected government and an increasingly assertive, post-Human Rights Act judiciary. Conservative policy-makers, please take note.
Just because it's in the manifesto and you were elected democratically to do it, doesn't mean activist judges are going to let you (immigration and asylum policy? school choice? democratically accountable policing?)
If you think I overstate my case, reflect on an interview in today's Telegraph with Lord Philips of Worth Matravers; "I regard the ever-rising numbers of people in prison with dismay .... If it can be avoided, it's in everyone's interest to do it".
There can be no clearer illustration that the people who preside over our criminal justice system are no longer on our side. Like unaccountable MPs, unaccountable judges end up driven by their own particular déformation professionnelle.
Most folk reading His Lordship's comments live in communities that have seen very significant increases in crime and disorder within the space of a generation. Why? Despite endless Home Secretaries promising fatuous new “get tough” initiatives, the criminal justice system has become very bad at bringing wrong-doers to account. Contrary to the Guardianista myth about Britain having a high prison population, it is a fact that as a ratio of crimes committed, Britain actually incarcerates a relatively small number of offenders.
Yet here is a senior state official blithely suggesting public policy be changed so that we lock up even fewer wrong-doers. At what election was this political matter decided?
More disturbing than Lord Philips wish for the state to arbitrarily renege on its responsibility to administer punishment is his defence of the Human Rights Act. Unsurprisingly, given that it gives lots of power to judges, His Lordship thinks it "a very good thing". He would.
Yet it is the next reported sentence that is so disturbing. Philips has the gall to suggest that he does not wish to stray into politics. Surely not wanting to lock up as many wrong-doers is straying into politics? It bodes ill that the most senior judge in the land either cannot see that, or chooses not to.
Lord Philips, as long as there remains a Human Rights Act, judges will be "in politics". That's why we have to scrap it - and begin to make the justice system work for us, not for judges and criminals (details here)
UPDATE: For those who've been asking, the picture is of the bombardment of Fort Sumter - the opening clash in what was also a big constitutional dispute.
Posted on 11 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Lobbyists attitudes towards political parties
College Public Policy / ComRes held an interesting evening seminar about lobbyists' attitudes towards party conferences.
Lobbyists, like senior civil servants and quangocrats, are notoriously fickle. Ever sensitive to which way the political breeze is blowing, they'll sidle-up to whoever they think is going to win - all the while trying to maintain a look of "above-it-all" disinterest.
So who are they most keen to court?
Well over 70% of those asked felt it important that their organisation was represented at the Conservative party conference. As the graph shows, a mere half felt the same about Labour.
Posted on 10 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Is Cameron set to cut the number of ministers?
Cap the number of ministers and reduce the number of MPs on the salary payroll, says Step 13 of The Plan (page 49-50 and 171).
Today’s Telegraph
suggests Cameron is likely to promise to cap the number of ministers and reduce the number of MPs on the salary payroll.
Page by page, ideas in The Plan are incorporated into the new Conservative agenda ...
Posted on 10 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Defence procurement is a scam
Ex-Colonel, Stuart Tootal, has criticised the fact that the "new" helicopters sent to Afghanistan aren't exactly new. In fact, they are old Sea Kings, which, he says, have ''limited lift capacity''.
That's because £1.7 billion of the defence budget has been blown on buying 62 helicopters (average price per chopper £27 million) that won't be ready for years. Much less expensive helicopters, ready within months, could've been bought instead.
Without radical reform, the defence budget will continue to be siphoned off in the interests of contractors, rather than our armed forces.
Posted on 10 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Is someone trying to tell us something?
Hattip: Crossfire
PS. For those that don't get it, it's a spoof. A joke. Humour.
Posted on 10 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
How do we cull the quangos?
One reason folk are so fed up with politics is the fact that so many of the really important decisions that affect their lives are actually made by unaccountable quangos. No matter who you vote for, decisions over local health services, education and policing are made by a vast alphabet soup of quangos - from PCTs to NICE, QCA and LSC, or CPS.
The problem, as I'll be telling the Editorial Intelligence / Audit Commission audience this evening, is that successive politicians have promised a bonfire of quangos. Yet nothing seems to happen.
Why is this? Because you cannot rely on executive fiat to restrain the executive.
Hydra-like quangos need to be culled by more subtle means. Make them justify their existence, as David Cameron says - but to the legislature, not merely to ministers.
Make quango chiefs appear annually before Commons select committees to beg for their budgets. Hold confirmation hearings for appointments.
It'd restore a little purpose to Parliament.
It might also make us realise that we can, more than likely, cope without quite so many technocrats.
UPDATE: Interesting point from last night's debate - a quango chief came up to me at the end and said he'd prefer it is we did all have my proposed system of Parliamentary committees approving every quangos annual budget and confirming quango chief appointments. Why? "It'd free me from all the internal politics and give me a mandate to get on and do my job", he replied.
Posted on 9 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Six reasons Conservatives need more than lip-service localism
1. Centralised, command politics eventually means centralised, command economics - and the undoing of the post-Thatcher settlement.
2. A remote State will be big, intrusive and unchecked.
3. Accountability via Ministers to Parliament is a fiction. Public services run at that level are accountable only to the standing apparat - not taxpayers or users.
4. One-size-fits-all public policy is rarely innovative, and slow to adapt when things go wrong.
5. Localism will revive civic conservatism in parts of the country where it’s been extinct for years. Why? A correlation between how people vote locally, the taxes they pay and the services they receive, will create an incentive to vote centre right in local elections that doesn't always currently exist.
6. The internet is transforming public attitudes towards public services. People will not much longer tolerate remote officials deciding what’s best for them.
Posted on 9 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Our Foreign Office is rotten
A couple of months back, Foreign Office officials intervened to stop the supply of some pretty innocuous hardware to Israel. Today, we discover government officials okayed selling water cannon and armoured carriers to Gaddafi's tyrannical regime.
What sort of country have we become? What kind of ally?
There's something sick within our Foreign policy establishment. It'll take a strong dose of democratic accountability to cure it.
Posted on 8 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Conservatives are the anti-politics party
Cameron's speech today about cutting the cost of politics was great - and in line with what he said in Milton Keynes. We get really poor value for money from those in SW1 and all the over-paid quangocrats.
Cameron today proposed:
Every quango having to justify it existence - hopefully it'll be the legislature to whom they have to justify their existence, not ministers. The only way to reduce quangos and make them efficient is to force their head honchos to appear annually before each Commons committee to get approval for their budget.
Ending MPs perks - including the £10,000 bragging communications allowance and all those off-balance sheet subsidies.
Abolish the standards board and the regional development agencies - sooner the better.
Outlaw public bodies using public money to lobby government - yes, Association of Police Authorities, that includes you.
1980s Tories decentralised control over the economy - freeing it from the economic planners and technocrats. The task for the new Conservatives is to decentralise control over politics and public services - freeing it from self-servers in SW1 and quangocrats.
Cameron's promises today are a good start...
Posted on 8 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Brown's Britain is soft on terror
It's good that three al Qaeda terrorists have been convicted for plotting to blow up airliners.
But seeing as how the terrorist convicted of blowing up an airplane over Lockerbie has been freed, what confidence can we have that they'll be meaningfully punished?
Assuming they get a "life sentence" or two, with plenty of do-gooder human rights lawyers out there, how long do you suppose before they're out?
The shocking truth is that we can no longer have faith in our criminal justice system, until it is made properly accountable to the rest of us.
Posted on 8 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Quit whining, Sir Hugh Orde
Head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Sir Hugh Orde, clearly doesn't like the idea of democratically accountable policing. He seems to think the rest of us will continue to accept a criminal justice system grown hopelessly unaccountable to the folk it's supposed to serve.
In a truly pathetic interview in the Independent, he argues against the idea of having directly elected police bosses because he seems to think not enough folk will vote. Surely, that's an argument for not having elected councils, either?
And he fears that the wrong sort of people might be elected. Unlike all those superbly effective people currently sitting on Police Authorities, you mean?
And what if an extremist minority won the ballot? Like those wanting the police to be tougher on criminals? Panic at the thought....
Sir Hugh's clincher argument is that he's not been given enough information on the proposals. "No one has articulated to me or anyone else what the elected commissioner plan actually looks like" he moans.
Well try reading this or this or this or this. (Incidentally, Sir Hugh, when you do, you'll see it's Police Authorities that'll be replaced by elected commissioners - not Chief Constables, who'd have their operational independence enshrined in law).
And if you still aren't clear Sir Hugh, as one the the architects behind this policy proposal, I'm happy to pop over to explain how this democracy thing works.
Posted on 7 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Should Conservatives embrace electoral reform?
I can't think of two letters more likely to antagonise a traditional Tory audience than "P" and "R". The right has been near unanimous in its opposition to Proportional Representation.
PR has been viewed as a dastardly scheme, cooked up by Lib Dems to win more seats. Or as some Guardianista plot, aimed at achieving permanent centre-left government.
But surely it is small-state Conservatism that loses out most under the current disposition?
With 7 out of 10 MPs from “safe seats”, the Commons today is monumentally useless as a legislature capable of reining in the executive. Indeed, most of its members today don't merely favour the executive - they aspire to be part of it. Thus are £ Billions of tax revenue spent - without proper scrutiny. Hence does most law come from Brussels. And thereby does the quango state decide public policy, ministers occasionally letting the House know.
Without a effective check from the legislature, executive power reaches into the nooks and crannies of our lives - and our wallets.
For a generation or more, Conservatives have made a tactical error, looking to Tory-run executives alone to rein in executive power. That’s why there are more quangos, spending more money, and making more decisions, than ever before. Curbing executive power is a task for a revived legislature, too.
If every member of the Commons faced a genuinely competitive election to remain at Westminster, we would have a legislature with real verve, capable of independent-minded scrutiny of government.
The best way to bring real choice and competition in our politics would be to allow Totnes-style open primary contests in every constituency – as well as recall votes against dozy or wayward incumbents. This October, I’ll be introducing a Bill that’ll allow local people to do both.
But perhaps we need multi-member constituencies, too? I'm open-minded.
“Party list” PR would mean that instead of 7 out of 10 MPs having safe seats, it’d be 9 out of 10. Politics would become one giant “A list”.
Yet, if we were to have multi-member seats, as in Ireland, combined with open primaries, law makers who didn’t listen to local people would be one term candidates. We’d have citizen law-makers championing the local interest in Westminster - and fewer professional politicians defending Westminster to their constituents.
Multi-member seats would retain the constituency link – and produce clear working majorities, not endless coalitions. It’d ensure more choice when deciding who gets to be your next MP. And more competition, not just when opening fetes and holding advice surgeries, but when vying to champion local opinion.
Conservatives recognise that choice and competition raise standards in our public services. We need to apply the same logic to our politics, too.
Posted on 7 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
G20 to cap banker bonuses ....
.... according to the Telegraph.
Hummm....
Remind me, are Singapore or Dubai in the G20?
So, in this age of highly mobile capital, what do you think could happen if the G20 - or at least the Euro contingent of the G20 - goes ahead with this sort of scheme?
I think even Homer Simpson can see the obvious flaws in this plan. But not, it would seem, Sarko and Gordo ....
And remember how all those cliché recycling commentators and cut-and-paste journalists used to tell us how Gordo was some sort of a secret economic genius?
Posted on 6 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Micro-finance in Uganda - a really interesting idea
Having grown-up in Uganda, I've a keen interest in the country. As an economic liberal, I've an interest in free markets, too.
Both interests came together at a recent meeting at the House of Commons on micro-finance in Africa. By using micro-finance, farmers in Uganda are able to develop the rural economy and become far more productive.
I was amazed to learn that Africa - despite having some remarkably fertile land - is still having to import US$ 40 billion of food each year. Micro-finance schemes could go some way to reducing that - and allowing us to import food from Africa, to everyone's advantage.
Posted on 5 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
When Big Business meets Big Government ....
We end up doing grubby deals with people like him.
.... Ex-intelligence officers end up working as consultants to large oil companies.
.... Former top civil servants sit on the board of large defence contractors.
.... British foreign policy becomes mercantile - the national interest confused with the commercial interests of a few big corporations.
Whether it is Saudi Arabia and fighter jets, or Libya and oil, the pattern is the same - former state officials for hire, commerical interests masquerading as realpolitik.
And our country's real interests, including the special relationship with the United States, end up traded for the private advantage of a few, large UK businesses.
This is what happens when foreign policy is left to the Foreign Office.
Posted on 4 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Interviewed about The Plan by Mark Reckons
Fellow blogger, Mark Reckons has flattered me with an interview here.
He has read The Plan from a Lib Dem perspective - and I'm pleased with some of his reactions to it.
Seems like there's a bit more to this progressive Conservatism thingy than shallow-thinking Guardianistas would have you believe...
Posted on 3 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Why the courts aren't on your side?
A Crown court judge is today reported as saying he wants to be able to hand down longer sentences for serious violent offences.
As long as an unaccountable quango - the Sentencing Guidelines Council - calls the shots, we'll never have an effective system of justice. Our criminal justice system is run by remote officials. These quangocrats have a leftist agenda, which favours the rehabilitation of wrong-doers over the administration of justice.
Until we make those who run our justice system directly democratically accountable, it will never be on our side.
Posted on 3 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Let the Franco-German motor trundle off
According to Daniel Korski on the Spectator site, the "Franco-German motor is reving" up - and "will leave Britain behind".
Gosh. Off you go, then.
Other than the career diplomats whose job is sign us up to everything, why should the rest of us care?
For years, we've been told we have to get in there and sign up for more EU cooperation - or else that "Franco-German motor" will drive everything.
Not if we quit the EU, it wouldn't.
And if the political elites in Paris and Berlin think that their joint motor supranational initiatives will help their sclerotic economies and over regulated peoples, good luck.
Posted on 2 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Gordon Brown - totally untrustworthy?
Gordon Brown has just said that there was "no conspiracy, no cover ups, no double-dealing" over the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.
Straight and honest responses from the man who hired Damian McBride.
Posted on 2 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
There's nothing progressive about supporting the BBC
Leftie Guardianistas like to see themselves as "progressive". Yet when it comes to the BBC, they're the precise opposite. Rather than seek reform, they're extraordinary hostile to change.
They defend a status quo whereby £ billions are collected via a TV poll tax, and given over to a state corporation - the head of whom is paid over £14,000 a week. Very progressive.
Look at the incoherence of the Left's reaction to James Murdoch's suggestion that over regulation and state interference was distorting the development of new media.
Jonathan Freedland's attempted rebuttal of Murdoch actually ends up admitting that it might perhaps be best if the BBC is "reined in" after all. Curious.
Thanks to the internet, broadcasting, commentary and publishing have been radically democratised. Yet the Left still defends a public policy formulation dating back to a time when there were only a handful of TV and radio channels. That's not progressive - it's neanderthal.
As with so much else, Leftie "progressives" - despite the self-image - actually rather like the status quo.
It is, instead, those on the centre right who favour radical change - passing power away from the few and down to the many. You doubt me? Who wants directly elected police chiefs, radical localism, open primaries, popular initiative and far-reaching change at Westminster. Generally not the type who favour the BBC.
Posted on 2 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Talking defence on Sky
On Sky this evening talking about a report by the Defence Industries Council.
They argue that spending more public money on the defence industrial lobby is A Good Thing. Not because of anyone's share price mind. Apparently, it'd be good for the UK economy.
I take the slightly more old-fashioned view that the primary purpose of the defence budget is not to create jobs, but instead to supply our armed forces with the best kit in the world.
If we scrapped the Defence Industrial Strategy and spent the same amount of money purchasing kit "off-the-shelf", our armed forces would have the kit they want, when they need it.
More money for defence. Less easy cash for defence contractors.
Posted on 1 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Being governed by the EU is taking us back to the dark ages
Thanks to the EU, traditional light bulbs are now banned.
Our Euro masters have also decreed the closure of nine coal and oil power stations by 2015 - which may even cause power cuts.
Sitting in darkness may well be "energy efficient". But I'm not sure it's necessarily progress.
Whether the lights actually go out or not, being governed in this way is a step back to the dark ages.
One of the reasons liberal democracies are generally richer and more successful than autocratices is that public policy decisions are subject to scrutiny. There tends to be an autocorrect mechanism against public officials who get things wrong.
But neither the decision to ban certain light bulbs nor to close coal power stations has been taken by those accountable to the rest of us.
Posted on 1 September 2009 by Douglas Carswell