Best MP?
Yoosk.com is running an online poll to find "Britain's best MP". Ludicrously, they've short listed Lib Dems, three Labour, and then myself - the token Tory.
See the short list at www.yoosk.com. Only some sort of warped Guardianista would think it a fair and proportional sample of our legislators.
That aside, should one really be encouraging readers of this blog to vote for me? In 2009, I'm not sure "best MP" is an accolade one should aspire to.
What counts is how my constituents vote in 2010. Not how everyone else might vote on www.Yoosk.com in the last week of 2009.
Posted on 30 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Watched Day of the Triffids last night....
See what happens when government tries to avert global warming by encouraging big corporations to farm triffids?
Still, at least in the BBC re-interpretation of John Wyndham's classic novel, they weren't so daft as to manufacture sulphur dioxide and pump it into the upper atmosphere. Which is what some climate "experts" are now advocating....
Posted on 30 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Who elected Kier Starmer?
It used to be the case that elected law makers made the law, judges interpreted it, and public prosecutors brought charges on the basis of it.
We've seen how judges increasingly like to interpret what they think the law ought to be, rather than what it is. They do so citing all manner of texts and charters, rather than primary law made by people you voted for.
Now it seems the chief public prosecutor, Keir Starmer, isn't content to leave law making to elected legislators either. He's announced his opposition to changing the law in favour of home owners protecting their property from burglars.
The law regarding intruders "works very well", he pronounced on Radio 4. Why? Well, he continued, CPS officials very often did not bring prosecutions where a householder had used force because it was judged that no jury would consider it unreasonable.
Ponder that carefully. In other words, CPS officials seem to be determining guilt or innocence without cases coming to trial. Isn't it for juries to make that call?
Surely, whatever you think about the rights of homeowners, it is for Parliament to determine the law, and juries to determine guilt, not for Mr Starmer and co? Perhaps if the CPS wasn't second guessing juries, we'd see for ourselves that the law is unsatisfactory, and demand change.
The last century saw a steady erosion of many of the democratic checks and balances that under pinned our justice system; grand juries abolished, trial juries curtailed or scrapped in certain instances (thin end wedge?), quango control over local constabularies, elitist judicial activism.
Perhaps this century requires a counter revolution to make the justice system answer to ordinary law abiding people like it used to? How about elected public prosecutors? It seems to work elsewhere.
Posted on 29 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
2010 predictions; political pendulum stays broken
Traditionally, when a governing party loses support, the principal opposition party has tended to win popularity by an almost identical margin. This pendulum effect meant that Labour's loss was the Conservative's gain - and vice versa.
Numerous bemused commentators think as if the pendulum ought still to exist. Many politicians act as though its see-saw effect remained with us.
At the 2005 election, most of Labour's lost votes didn't go to the Conservatives at all. In 2010, making certain that Labour unpopularity translates into Conservative support means not just giving people positive reasons to back us. Nor is it enough to say what we'd like to do. We need to give folk some indication as to how we'll actually be doing it.
In this age of anti-politics, the tactics of triangulation increasingly won't work. Too-clever-by-half positioning leaves voters cold. Never assume that just because a voter loathes the other lot, they've no where to go but to you.
So what'll be the magic glue needed to bind together that broad, election winning coalition? Authenticity.
Posted on 28 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Steady as she sinks ....
Apparently Ed Balls is back in favour with 10 Downing Street, but Peter Mandelson isn't. Or have I got that the wrong way round?
May be it is Harriet Harman that's on the up, and Douglas Alexander that's on the way down?
Who cares.
Being elevated by Gordon Brown in 2010 is going to be a bit like winning a promotion on the Titanic.
Posted on 28 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
2010 predictions: higher inflation
Forget talk of deflation. In 12 months time, the pound in your pocket will buy you less than it does today.
Why? Inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods and services. And government has been conjuring up lots and lots more money.
Every time they magic into existence another squillion quid (bank bail outs and quantitative easing et al), the quids that belong to you are worth less than they were.
Government spokesmen will act hurt and surprised as inflation erodes you wealth. But remember; conjuring up more money is how government, free from legislative accountability, always inflates away its debts and redistributes wealth from you to them.
Posted on 27 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to all my readers. Best wishes to you and your families.
Blogging will be light today, as I've brussel sprout duties to attend to. (Also, I've not worked out how to okay comments from where I am, so apologies for the slight delay in them appearing!)
Posted on 25 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Dame Paddy Ridsdale
I went to Paddy Ridsdale's funeral at St Mary The Boltons yesterday.
For almost four decades, Harwich returned her husband, Sir Julian Ridsdale, as our local MP. They were very much a political double act, Dame Paddy doing so much of the constituency case work. It's a measure of quite how effective she was that almost two decades later, constituents still talk fondly of what she did to help them.
Margaret Thatcher, who Sir Julian did so much to support, was there too.
As we sang "The day thou gavest", I reflected on the fact that Sir Julian and Paddy together won ten General Elections in this constituency in a row. While I won by a mere 920 votes in 2005, Sir Julian bequeathed a majority of 15,000 when he stood down in 1992.
The thought put me in my place. I hope to be as good a constituency MP as Sir Julian and Paddy were.
Posted on 24 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Why politics?
Me? I explain that I'm in politics to make sure that there's less of it. Get politicians off people's backs - and out of their wallets.
Too many politicians are in politics to run / supervise / regulate / oversee things for us. (When did we ask them?) Stop the quango state running folks lives. Let people run things for themselves, or locally in their communities.
Imagine if politicians ran supermarkets? There'd be catchment areas for breakfast cereals and waiting lists for bananas. Like they run education, in fact.
Have a listen, decide which answers you like best, then vote here.
Posted on 23 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Europe referendum - help draft the question
If there was a referendum on Europe, what should the question be?
As regular readers will know, I've a Bill in Parliament to give the people a direct vote on Britain's membership of the European Union; the European Union Membership (Referendum) Bill.
The Electoral Commission has contacted me to advise on the precise text of the question to appear on the ballot paper (Under the Political Parties, Election and Referendum Act 2000, they’ll be helping in any future plebiscite, so it's good due dilligence to prepare the ground for an in/out vote and work with them early on).
So what are the options? Bear in mind that the vote will be on the Rome Treaty, not just Lisbon.
"Should the UK remain a member of the European Union?" Or maybe, "Do you believe that the United Kingdom should become an independent self-governing country, or remain a member state of the European Union?"
Please use the comment thread to let me have your suggestions for the referendum question to appear on the ballot paper.
If, after decades of leaving it to the politico-diplomatic elite to determine our Europe policy, they've done a great job, they'll have nothing to fear from the people's verdict. If, on the other hand, voters suspect that the passing generation of ministers were about as effective at managing our affairs with Europe as they were at running an expense system for MPs, then the sooner we open it all up to scrutiny, the better.
Posted on 22 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Shortest day of the year
It's now the Winter Solstice - the shortest day of the year. Which is good, because it means we have lengthening days to look forward to from now on.
And I was told to plant my shallots out on the shortest day of the year, and dig them up on the longest. Any excuse to get out into the garden.
Posted on 21 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Was Copenhagen a failure?
So. No deal to legally curtail economic growth in Copenhagen. No targets restraining human liberty or enterprise on a world-wide scale. No fix by the supranational quangocracy to take over the nooks and crannies of our lives.
And still the sun rose this morning. Snow fell in Essex and, no doubt, melted someplace else. Nature today still does what nature has long done; ebbs, flows, changes, adapts. Life carries on.
Perhaps the only thing that "failed" in Copenhagen was an attempt by our priesthood of smug, self-serving Western politicians to place themselves at the centre of it all.
Posted on 21 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Brown's word: valued like his bonds
When Gordon Brown became PM, he specifically promised greater scrutiny powers for MPs. Commons select committees, he suggested, could scrutinize key executive appointments.
Yet last week, Gordon's little helper, Ed Balls, went ahead and named Kathleen Tattersall the new head of exams watchdog Ofqual. No one on the Education Select Committee (on which I sit), seems to have been asked.
Seems Brown's words, like all those HMG bonds issued to cover his debts, aren't worth quite what they seem over time.
The quango state carries on without reference to those you elect. Remember that next time there's another SATs test or A level exam fiasco.
Posted on 20 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Global warming snow hits Essex
I had to push / dig the car out of the snow the other night. Not much evidence of global warming in Essex this week.
Posted on 19 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
A vote on Europe - if not Lisbon, then Rome
Today I introduce a Bill in the House of Commons that would give the people a direct vote on Britain's membership of the European Union; the European Union Membership (Referendum) Bill.
All three political parties promised us a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Yet it never happened.
For thirty years, it's been left to politicians and diplomats to determine our Euro policy. No one under the age of 53 has had the chance to vote in a referendum on it. I think now it's time to let the people decide.
Naturally, given how government controls Parliament (as opposed to the other way around), my Private Members Bill faces an uphill struggle to become law. But it puts down a marker. It breaks the Westminster taboo. What has been unsaid for too long is now in print on the Order Paper.
If it is too late to have a vote on the Lisbon Treaty - and I think it is - then we need to have a vote on Rome.
This isn't just about Europe. It's about making politics link more directly to the people. It’s about direct democracy and people power.
My Bill is backed by MPs from all parties. And even by MPs who support the EU, but fear it lacks legitimacy without a vote.
Surely the only reason to oppose such a referendum must be fear of the result?
Posted on 16 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Arresting Livni: is this what Human Rights law was intended for?
The leader of a democratic party from another liberal democracy has had to cancel her visit to the United Kingdom. Why? Because a British judge has issued a warrant for her arrest.
Shockingly, the Israeli Opposition leader, Tzipi Livni, has been forced to cancel after a British court issued a warrant for her arrest, reports the Jerusalem Post. All because she happened to be an Israeli government minister.
Was the arrest of democratic officials from friendly nations what we had in mind when we signed up to all this?
Ignore the bogus reassurances given by our Foreign Office and the Justice Ministry. What we are starting to see here are the extraordinary consequences of judicial activism - unleashed since judges took it upon themselves to adjudicate on the basis of Human Rights rules. British judges not only decide on matters of public policy in the UK and overrule elected officials here. They now claim an extraterritorial jurisdiction that allows them to sit in judgement of the actions of elected politicians in other nation states.
Think through the implications. Would we seriously arrest George W Bush? Is it possible to conduct normal relations with a British state that is prepared to arrest visiting dignitaries? Such arrogance is truly imperial in scale.
And somehow it's only those of whom the lefties disapprove - Pinochet or Israeli ministers - who run the risk of ending up in the dock.
Why is it our courts find the time to issue these warrants, but not deal with convicted criminals who have unlawfully remained in Britain?
An almighty bust up with our leftist judiciary is coming. The new British Bill of Rights must deal with judicial activists and the
internationalisation of law
as a priority.
UPDATE: "But this has nothing to do with the Human Rights Act" responds a reader.
Who mentioned the HRA? I talked about "judicial activism - unleashed since judges took it upon themselves to adjudicate on the basis of Human Rights rules."
The warrant for Ms Livni's arrest came about thanks to the 2001 International Criminal Court Act. That allows UK courts to issue warrants for people to be charged by the International Criminal Court, established under the Rome Statute (rather appropriate, given the imperial scale of its ambition?)
And what do you know? The Rome Statute talks about "internationally recognised Human Rights" (Article 21) and ensures that only Human Rights practitioners get to sit on the court (Article 36).
The problem of Human Rights as a basis for judicial activism extends far, far wider than our own Human Rights Act.
Posted on 15 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Defence Industrial Stupidity
Our defence procurement system is bankrupt. There's a £36 Billion black hole in the MoD sums, according to the National Audit Office. Too much money has been hosed away on substandard kit that’ll arrive far too late.
Those whose perennial cry has been “spend more on defence!” need to accept some uncomfortable truths; after a decade of Gordon Brown, there’s no more to spend. Second, hosing more money on defence without changing the way that we spend the money isn’t going to get us enough kit. With or without extra £ Billions, the current Defence Industrial Strategy is not delivering.
Take just one example; we spending £1.9 Billion buying 62 Future Lynx Wildcat helicopters. Yet reducing the number bought from 80 to 62 has bumped up the cost per helicopter to over £30 Million each.
Put it another way; they managed a 12 percent cost reduction on the back of a 23 percent reduction in the number of helicopters to be produced. Homer Simpson could have done a better job.
It is impossible to obtain good value from the Defence Industrial Strategy, since it is a protectionist racket intended to serve the producer, not the customer. It will always place corporate margins over the needs of our armed forces.
Many of the supposed defence "experts" in SW1 simply do not posses the clarity of thought to see the problem, let alone know how to deal with it.
Posted on 15 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Blair speaketh on climate change
"The science around climate change" says Tony Blair "is not as certain as its proponents allege. It doesn't need to be .... Even purely as a matter of precaution .... we should act".
Statements rarely come more irrational than that. Despite acknowledging the scientific "consensus" on global warming is nothing of the sort, people like Blair want us to commit multiple £billions to tackling something we may neither cause, nor be able to alter.
How can it be that the environmental movement has got itself into this position?
Rich men jet set cross the planet in first class to argue that the rest of us have our flights rationed. It's deemed environmentally-friendly to industrialise our countryside by covering it with wind turbines. Progressive politicians support regressive surcharges on families' utility bills in order to put large subsidies onto the balance sheet to big corporations.
It is not, you might say, sustainable.
Posted on 14 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Trains messed up - again
Once again, the company that operates the railway service in my part of Essex has been caught off guard at all these folk wanting to get into London on a Monday morning.
Why is it that somehow or other the trains just don't seem to show up when those passengers turn up? There's always an excuse for it - lost cables, wrong weather, points failure, plastic bag on overhead cable, blah blah.
May be instead it's something to do with the way large corporations treat us when they only have to answer to big government, rather than the customer?
When was the last time you turned up at a supermarket to be told they're out of food due to "overhead power cable failure"? Or visited the cinema to be greeted by some technical excuse for your films no show?
Posted on 14 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Radio 4's Week in Westminster
Am supposed to be on Radio 4 this evening talking about the week ahead in politics. I always enjoy doing Week in Westminster, far more so than almost any other comparable programme.
Posted on 13 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Does the BBC have much to say about the digital revolution?
The BBC is making a documentary on the digital revolution. Surely, that's a bit like asking the Vatican to provide the commentary on the Reformation?
A big, mid-twentieth century corporation, the BBC's outlook is inherently corporatist. From Orla Guerin's overseas reporting to Robert Peston's economic analysis, from politically correct storylines in their drama output to the very notion of what constitutes public policy, there's an unyielding corporatist streak running across all that this broadcast monolith does.
The idea that it's in any position to shed light on the democratisation of communication and opinion, or on the dissemination of knowledge, is fanciful. Just look at the broadcast aristocracy that the BBC has lined up to lecture us on this bottom up revolution.
The makers of this new documentary offer to let you and me have a direct say in the production (Good). But on their terms (Very analogue).
The premise of popular participation in this programme is that it's the add on - the professionals doing most of the doing (reminicent of government "online consultation", with similar levels of take up, perhaps?)
Surely if the BBC really understood Chris Anderson's Long tail point about the transformative impact of the web, they'd grasp that the wisdom of the crowd comes first. The filtering must be done on their terms, not that of the BBC experts.
The digital revolution will smash hierarchy and diffuse power - in politics (see here or here) and public services, as much as retail. It will strip away the barriers to entry and cut out the middle man.
That's all bad news for princely quangocrats like the Beeb, the aristocracy of commentators and the priesthood of politicians who today preside over us. But it'll be good news for the rest of us.
Posted on 12 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Renew democracy - an interview with BBC
The BBC interviewed me here about the way that the internet is going to transform the way we access public services - and hold to account those who run them.
Politics won't be something we have remote politicians do for us. It'll increasingly be something we do for ourselves.
Posted on 11 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Does the Left secretly hate the web?
Sharing a platform with Polly Toynbee at the excellent Centre Forum’s “Broken Constitution” event the other evening, it occurred to me that perhaps the Left secretly loathes the internet – or rather, is beginning to hate its implications.
Criticising our failing representative deferential democracy, I suggested that SW1 was indeed smug, self-serving, unresponsive etc etc. We are, I added, run by an unaccountable quango state that determines public policy, rather than those we might vote for.
But, I went on, the web should put a smile on our face – it provided the means to change.
The web will do to the princely quangocrats and the priesthood of professional politicians who preside over us what the printing press did to their forebears. It’ll smash concentrations of power in our political system – just as it’s doing in retail and the media.
Barriers to entry in politics will go. Clear distinctions between amateur and professional will blur. A few years ago, Ms Toynbee and co formed an unchallenged aristocracy of commentators. Today, often to their consternation, they have to keep up with the likes of Guido Fawkes and a democratised commentariat.
Soon we’ll see
more direct democracy, with popular initiative, open primaries and recall. Public services, and those who provide them, will be made accountable right down to the local and the individual level.
The Guardianistas in the audience looked on aghast; “But that would lead to “consumerism” in our politics”, one lady said. “People will just demand whatever suits them”, she opined.
And you would rather that we stuck with our PutUpWithWhatYou’reGiven-ism we have today? The one that prevents local folk having any real say over local police priorities? Or denies them real choice over who gets to be your MP? Or stops your son getting the speech therapy the dozy LEA have failed to provide?
“Recall would mean MPs constantly having to look over their shoulder at their constituents” wailed another. Indeed. And they'd each need to answer outward to their constituents, not just inward to SW1.
And if direct democracy reawakens our moribund legislature, there might at last be a chance of scaling back big government. We might decentralise control over politics and public services the way we devolved control over economic things a generation ago.
The Left’s self image is that it is progressive and modern and “gets” the web. Yet some of the smarter ones are starting to grasp that it spells the end of the big corporate politics and media on which the British Left, and their quango state, have come to depend. They’re going to hate it.
Posted on 11 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Worrying state of the economy
Two of the best bits of analysis I've read about this government's appalling handing of the economy are Norman Lamont writing here and Philip Johnston a couple of days back here.
Forget BBC Robert Peston's pedestrian commentary. At times he seems to read more as a justificiation of the government's management of the nation's finances, than a critical analysis of it. Lamont and Johnston's first-rate writing instead sum things up.
Posted on 10 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Theresa in Frinton
Theresa Villiers, shadow Cabinet star and all round Good Thing, was in Frinton this evening.
Speaking to our local supper club, she gave us all an update on the Pre-Budget Report and the latest from Westminster. A great speaker!
Posted on 9 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
£50 billion spent on the nod
This week, the House of Commons will put through on the nod over £50 Billion of expenditure on education. With or without a ritual vote, the so-called Estimates debate will see precious little scrutiny.
If you want to know how government has managed to waste multiple £ billions of public money over the past decade, remember that with the Commons controlled by ministers, there's almost no safeguard over how they spend our money. Accountability, such as there is, is inward to quangos and Treasury officials, rather than outward to the taxpayer.
We once fought a civil war for the principle that those we elect should oversee how our taxes are spent. No more, it would seem.
If we are serious about reducing the amount of our money government wastes, we must stop relying on government to do the job. Executive fiat alone cannot curtail the executive. Curbing Whitehall largesse requires more than another Whitehall quango overseeing expenditure.
Budgetary discipline and responsibility should be imposed by accountable MPs. Departmental budgets should be voted on by the select committee annually. Then at last we might see more value for our tax pounds. It might also give our MPs something worthwhile to do.
Imagine if the minister had to appear before the select committee annually, to plead for his budget, with votes on various line items?
Posted on 8 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Who voted for the International Court of Justice?
The International Court of Justice is to consider the legality of Kosovo's declaration of independence.
Since when was self determination in the gift of a supranational elite? Not since the days of Metternich, when Euro elites suppressed demands for nationhood, occasionally being forced to grant subject peoples a margin of autonomy.
There is something almost imperial about the idea that a supranational court should be the final arbiter on questions of statehood.
Is it not faintly obnoxious to suppose that this International Court has any right to be making such judgements in the first place? Do you suppose that a panel of unaccountable, unelected supranational lawyers would have found in favour of the American declaration of indepdendence? ("I'm sorry, Mr Jefferson. Nice text, but it does not qualify under Article 36, paragraph 1"). Would they have granted the Irish or the Norwegians the right to be free?
Posted on 8 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Last days of the Defence Industrial Scam?
I see two rather interesting names on the Conservative's new Public Services Productivity Advisory Board; Bernard Gray and Peter Levene.
How is this significant?
Gray's recent report recognised what poor value for money our defence procurement system is. Levene, some years back, came as close as anyone has in decades to prescribing the right medicine.
Could this mean that those who argue that the primary purpose of the defence budget is to equip our armed forces with the best kit in the world are now winning the argument against the protectionists.
Is the writing on the wall for the Defence Industrial Strategy?
Posted on 7 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
You can't trust Brown to fix the economy
Moving into election mode, Gordon Brown today posses as Mr Thrifty, pledging now to cut gargantuan government waste. Spending on consultants is, we’re told, going to be cut by half and communication spending by a quarter - saving £650 million.
If such savings are possible, why has Brown waited ten years before he stops hosing our money away?
Senior civil servants’ pay is to be cut by 20%, Brown continues. Don’t you believe it. Semantic evasion is so much part of what this man is about, if there were to be a 20% decline in the amount paid to senior civil servants, I suspect it’ll only be because he reclassifies them as something else (like "quango chiefs", perhaps?)
Brown isn’t talking like this because he knows how to fix the nation’s finances. He’s saying all this because an election looms and his pollsters have told him the public are fed up with his government’s largesse with our tax money.
Gordon-the-incoherent blunders on with the suggestion that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will henceforth have to approve s
alary levels for future appointments. Top down micromanagement, perhaps? Once again, as a politician Brown can only think of solving a problem in terms of more central political control. He grips ever tighter at the broken levers of control.
If Brown had any coherent plan to overhaul Britain, he’d instantly see that scrutinizing departmental finances is supposed to be what our moribund House of Commons is for. He'd know that that curbing the excesses of public sector executive pay and restoring purpose to the legislature are part of the same thing.
Instead, he blunders from one terrible mistake to another half baked “idea”, egged on by spin doctors and spivs. All at our great cost.
Posted on 7 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Climate Change debate on GMTV this morning
I was up before 5am to be on the GMTV sofa to discuss global warming climate change.
My main point was that the climate is indeed changing. The natural world is in constant flux - the Thames would have been frozen over at around this time of year three centuries ago. Yet things were much warmer than today during the Middle Ages. These changes in the climate happened well before industrialisation.
I went on to say there's good scientific evidence that it's not human activity that's primarily changing the climate now, either. Yet those scientists who contend that human beings are not the primary driver of climate change, never seem to get to sit on the IPCC.
Science might be objective, but perhaps not all scientists? Is it not rash to sign up to £billion redistributive wealth agreements on the back of debateable science?
I'm as idealistic about the environment as I was when I joined Friends of the Earth twenty years ago. Yet I fear our obsession with CO2 emissions is squeezing out practical environmentalism (the cost of hosting the Copenhagen summit alone could secure depleted freshwater fisheries in Africa many times over).
In what sense is it environmentally friendly to actively promote the wind turbine industrialisation of our countryside? As a former FoE member, I despair at how the green movement has put itself in a position where it supports poorer families paying 10-15% surcharges on their electricity bills in order to provide hidden subsidies to large corporations.
You read that right. £millions each year are now being transferred via hidden, non-Treasury taxes, from low income households, on to the balance sheets of big corporations. All in the name of the environment.
Where did it go so wrong?
Posted on 7 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Vernon Coleman on politics
"The sad truth is that the modern MP has as much influence over modern legislation as has the dog next door" - Vernon Coleman
That perception, I suspect, explains why so many people now feel so detached from politics and politicians. If the people you elect don't count, voters will feel their votes won't count.
If you think Coleman is wrong, please explain?
Posted on 7 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Pre Budget Report ...
... John Redwood has an excellent post about it here. I really do think that John's blog is absolutely required daily reading.
Posted on 6 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Internet and the irrepressible flow of ideas
"Objective science and the flow of knowledge about it on the internet" means "there's going to come a correction in the market for ideas" about climate change. That's what I told the Guardian in an interview the day before the Climategate story broke.
And there's one blog that as much as any has helped bring this flow of knowledge; Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit.
I've added it to my blogroll. If you're unsure about the climate change debate, please click here.
The web has democratised knowledge. We don't have to leave it all to "experts" at my alma mater, the University of East Anglia.
Posted on 5 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
An end to Western hegemony?
You know how leftie Guardianista-types have spent years willing the eclipse of the West?
What if Copenhagen proves a tipping point?
Could it be the moment when India, China, Brazil et al say "Enough! No more to being pushed about by de-industrialised, sclerotic, indebted Euro-weenies. Quit forcing your priorities on to us"?
How ironic it could be. And what then would Guardianistas have to make of it?
Posted on 5 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Gosport Open Primary update
News just in from my man in Gosport: something like 20% of all local residents - that's about 10,000 - voted in the open primary.
In other words, one in five local residents had a direct say over who gets to be their next MP. Not bad when you compare it to many of the one party fiefdoms in which voters have little choice. And compare it to the closed primaries or the caucuses used elsewhere, where something like 0.5% of local voters took part.
Think of the head start that this proper open primary selection gives the winner?
The key question now is who have the good people of Gosport selected to be the Conservative candidate? My money is that the Gosport primary, like the Totnes, will be won by a woman. A 100% record of proper open primaries selecting women candidates? We'll soon find out.
UPDATE: Results due at noon, I'm told ....
UPDATE: Caroline Dinenage wins! Congratulations.
Significantly, Tory Chairman Eric Pickles issues a challenge to other political parties: "I would encourage our opponents to consider this radical change as a way to reinvigorate our political process. It is vital we make every effort to rebuild people’s trust in their politicians."
Posted on 4 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Parliament is useless
The banking bail out cost each British household £5,500. Yet, unlike America, our elected representatives had no real say in a decision that saw millions of poor people forced to stump up for a few rich. Which perhaps explains why Brown and co are now so keen to appear tough on banker bonuses.
While Congressmen haggled and contested every dollar, our subsidy for City incompetence went through on the nod.
Not since ship money has government been so unaccountable for how it spends our money. When will Parliament wake up?
Posted on 4 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Europe: where's our influence?
Being part of Europe means we get influence, they say. Britain can shape policy. Or at the very least, avert harmful new EU regulations.
But there's a far simpler way to ensure we get to determine our own policy and avoid EU red tape; quit.
The City is said to be outraged that they’ll now be forced to dance to the tune called by the Euro regulator. Remind me which parts of our productive economy have flourished since we handed over control of them to Brussels – The art market? Farming and fisheries? The energy sector? Small businesses?
If our financial service industry doesn't like the way we've surrendered fiscal sovereignty, why not help get it back? Now we can all see that there's only one EU on offer, why not let the people decide if it's in all our interests to remain part of it?
Drawn a lowly 14th out of 20 Private Members Ballots, I will, nonetheless, be drafting a Bill that will give the people something all three parties promised; a referendum.
For decades, we've left it to politicians and diplomats to define our relations with Europe. It's time to give the people their say. No one in Britain under the age of 52, despite what all three parties promised at the last election, has been allowed a direct say.
The only objection to such a referendum must, surely, be from those who don't like its possible outcome. Yet if we want to restore people's faith in politics, here surely, is the place to start.
My Private Members Bill will offer all sixty million of us - not just those in SW1 - the chance to decide our relations with Europe in an in or out referendum.
Posted on 3 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Environment Agency spends, but where are the sea defences?
Anxious about a failure to get on and provide adequate sea defences in my constituency, yesterday I met with officials from the Environment Agency.
Why, I wanted to know, was a state agency with a budget of over £1,000,000,000 a year, spending less than 0.2% of that amount on sea defences in my district? Surely they're not doing a great job at converting tax pounds into physical sea defences?
Why is it that this quango employs over 220 people in a distant office - many drafting strategy documents and undertaking risk assessments - yet they don't seem to find the money to repair collapsing sea walls?
As do all bureaucracies when left to themselves, officials seem to end up doing what suits them - rather than the folk paying for it all.
The Environment Agency seems to answer only inwards to Brussels and to other officials, not outwards to local people. Compliance with EU directives plays a far bigger role in shaping this organisation's priorities than those communities directly affected.
Then in today's Daily Mail, I could see why this is; 90% of government is now conducted by these sorts of quangos. A report by the Taxpayers' Alliance shows that policy over most areas of our lives no longer rests with Whitehall departments, since they've contracted it all to arms-length officials, like the Environment Agency.
No wonder people are losing faith in our democracy.
Perhaps the solution is to ensure that the head of the Environment Agency appears annually before the Commons Select Committee to beg for their budget? Until then, expect much talk, but not enough on actual sea defences.
Posted on 3 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Booth on Blond
The great Philip Booth of the IEA has an interesting critique of Phillip Blond here on ConHome. Prof Booth is one of the cleverest men I know, and as ever, what he writes is original and thoughtful.
Phillip Blond, rightly in my view, seems to identify big corporate business and government as a problem. But that's hardly an original observation, since everyone from Karl Marx to Ayn Rand seems to have made rather similar points. I'm less clear about Phillip Blond's proposed solutions.
For instance, he's been quick to argue that we need to maintain protectionist defence procurement. Yet, surely if there's one area where big business and big government are in cahoots, it's ... er ... defence procurement?
Also, as an early advocate of localism, I've always seen it as about devolving power to the individual where possible, the town hall where necessary. The most democratic system of local accountability remains the free market, rather than the ballot box. I fear that Phillip Blond sees localism as shorthand for some sort of micro corporatism.
Posted on 3 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Are we still capitalist?
Back in the Middle Ages, towns and merchants had to beg the permission of powerful rulers in order to be able to engage in commerce. We didn't exactly prosper.
Capitalism and industrialisation took off when the powerful stopped being able to interfere with business. We prospered - the more free market a society, the better off her people.
Indeed, perhaps one of the reasons why the industrial revolution took off in Britain first was precisely because we were a society in which people like Arkwright and co would not have their wealth expropriated from them by the state.
Yet today we seem to be slipping backwards. Free market capitalism is being replaced with a sort of cartel capitalism. Think of the regulators and the health and safety rules and the endless state quangos whose say so you now need?
You can trade, if you win the say so of the state to do so. You need permission to transact your business. And then when you do so profitably, the state nicks a vast chunk of the wealth you have created.
No wonder business is moving to the East.
I used to think de-industrialisation was an organic process - a natural consequence of free trade and development.
I'm starting to see it as a consequence of over regulation and taxation. If we want to regain our economic vitality and strength, we need a society in which producers no longer have to beg to produce and create wealth.
Posted on 2 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Climate change - some facts
According to Ian Plimer, the respected Australian scientist:
"The atmosphere is one of the smallest reservoirs of CO2 on the planet. The world’s oceans contain about 39,000 billion tonnes of carbon; soils, vegetation and humus contain about 2000 billion tonnes of carbon, and carbonate rocks such as limestone contain 65,000,000 billion tonnes of carbon. ….
The atmosphere contains only 0.001% of the total carbon present in the atmosphere-ocean-upper crust system ….
Volcanoes produce more CO2 than the world’s car and industries combined. Animals produce 25 times as much CO2 as cars and industry …" - Heaven and Earth, chapter 7.
Which bits of that are wrong, and in what way?
Posted on 2 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The trouble with Iran
I see the Iranians have seized another boatful of British sailors. Perhaps we should send Jack Straw to Tehran to get them back?
It was his appalling policy of appeasement when Foreign Minister that allowed the tyrants of Tehran to think they could behave like this. Remember how Jack sucked up to the mullahs? The grinning photos that must have made thousands of brave and lonely dissidents despair?
Recall the way our Foreign Office disgracefully conceded when the Iranians vetoed our choice of Ambassador?
This is how they respond. Go figure.
The trouble with appeasing tyrants is that they become bigger tyrants - in their eyes and the eyes of their oppressed people.
Posted on 1 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Wired over Westminster
I'd rather get a good write up in Wired than in Westminster.
Reading Chris Anderson's The Long Tail while writing The Plan last summer, I came to suspect that the internet will play a rather more important part in our lives over the coming years than anything emanating from the Houses of Parliament. Indeed, the former will be very much driving the later.
The web will reshaped our politics, doing to our faux system of deferential democracy what the printing press once did to hierarchy and religion. Bad news for the princely quangocrats and the priesthood of professional politicians who preside over us. Great news for everyone else.
Open primaries, elected police commissioners, popular initiative, recall, referendums, wiki-Bills; they've all long been possible. It's just that the internet makes them urgent and essential.
The January edition of Wired magazine describes the Hannan-Carswell set of ideas specifically as capable of bringing about "the single greatest transition in the way the country is governed that we as a generation will ever experience."
Posted on 1 December 2009 by Douglas Carswell