Gordon Brown's judgement?
If his judgement over that was so dreadful, how can he be trusted to repair our economy?
Posted on 30 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Shoeburyness explosions
I asked the minister about the explosions at Shoeburyness - which cause so much disruption (and some damage) to local homes in our part of Essex.
Bizarre answer – which seemed to show all the arrogance of a minister that’s been in power held office for too long.
He seemed to say that it'd be a "waste of time" for his officials to let local people know which explosions at the MoD site were caused by troops training - and which were commercial waste disposal operations. That's not the way folk see it in west Clacton, Jaywick, Clacton-on-Sea, Holland-on-Sea, Walton-on-the-Naze or Frinton .....
I think what really riled the minister was my reference to "crony capitalism". Perhaps the minister knows deep down that the party of Keir Hardie is now closer to big business interests than to ordinary people ….
Posted on 29 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Sunday gardening
Last autumn, I took cuttings from a number of fruit trees; gooseberry, josterberry (which seems to do especially well in this part of Essex), boysenberry and blackberry. They survived the winter and have started to bud.
Today I planted them out in the garden. Fingers crossed there is no late frost.....
Posted on 28 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
A revolutionary idea .... honest money
Thoughtful article from Charles Moore today…..
“People forgot that the history of the world is one in which most human beings have had a very hard time. A social order which produces steadily, genuinely growing prosperity for most citizens is therefore a great and rare achievement. …. For millions of people, this is now not happening. …. Ministers, bankers, Parliament have all failed, while looking after themselves comfortably in the process. So the conditions are ripe for a new politics of grievance and anger. Which is where revolutions begin.”
What might be truly revolutionary would be a return to honest money.
If the state was not able to manipulate the supply of money – often in cahoots with big banking corporations – we’d not be in this mess.
Since the end of Bretton Woods in the early 1970s, we’ve embarked on one giant paper currency experiment. Since then, Keynesians and monetarists have really only disagreed with one another over the speed with which government should debauch the currency.
Perhaps, like many ideas that emerged from the 60s (think high rise town blocks or child centered learning) government-run money turns out to be a disaster. Why should government be any better at running the currency than it is at running nationalised industry or other state monopolies?
A generation of paper money, and we've turned from producers and savers into consumers and spenders. Coincidence?
Indeed, China's refusal to debauch her currency as quickly as we devalue our own is right now causing Western commentators to attack China for allowing exchange rate "imbalances".
Perhaps we need to return to an economic system in which money cannot be manipulated by politicians and bankers for their own purposes?
UPDATE: A couple of readers pick me up on my passing reference to China. "Don't you know that they're holding their currency down and not allowing it to appreciate!". That's certainly the conventional wisdom.
I instead refer you to the insightful Liam Halligan who recently wrote: "It's also not clear that China's currency is "under-valued" by all that much. Despite the peg, the yuan is 20pc higher than in 2005. This flies in the face of claims that the fall is America's share of global exports – from 23pc to 18pc over the last five years – has happened because the yuan hasn't been allowed to rise. But, then again, blaming foreigners is easier than restructuring clapped-out, bloated and heavily-subsidised Western factories."
Or even re-thinking the ponzi credit policies and monetary manipulation that's killed off Western economic performance ....
Posted on 27 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
European economic government?
Decades ago, pan-European institutions took control of coal and steel policy. Europe subsequently de-industrialised.
Forty years of the Common Fisheries Policy. No more fish stocks.
Common trade policy and tariffs? Our share of world trade has halved.
Look at what the EU has done to our farmers and our small businesses. Ruined by red tape and regulation.
Now they want "an economic government for Europe". What's the chance that'll lead to disaster too?
Common European policy means bad policies for Europeans. Enough is enough.
Posted on 26 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Is the Middle East really unstable?
Heard someone from the BBC last night describe the Middle East as "more unstable than it's been for years".
Oh yeah? Surely the Middle East is actually one of the most stable places on the planet?
Forty years on, Egypt, Syria, Saudi et al are still run by the same gangs. Elsewhere, state players still support various nasties to wage nastiness by proxy.
Stagnating economies. Oil oligarchies. Little democracy. Limited property rights. And, of course blaming Israel for, you know, existing. What's changed?
Since I was born in 1971, every corner of our planet has seen transformative changes for the better. Elected governments in Africa. Trade liberalisation in Europe (sort of) and the US. Economic take off in Asia. The collapse of Latin American dictators. The fall of the Soviets.
What's the one part of our planet that's changed the least? Perhaps that's the problem....
Posted on 25 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Ban taxpayer-funded lobbying
I gather the government will today announce they'll be implementing Conservative plans to ban quangos from hiring lobbyists. (They might not mention the it-was-a-Tory-idea bit).
How do you suppose organisations like the Association of Police Authorities are going to lobby against localism now? What will the quango state do to subvert democracy with these rules in place?
Easy. I suspect state-funded quangocrats will get around these new rules by hiring public relation people in house. And call it something like stakeholder outreach.
Only proper fiscal accountability to those we elect will end the misuse of taxpayer money. Only making those we elect properly vulnerable to the voters will give our politicians the appetite to do it.
Posted on 24 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Labour's economic record
This graph shows how many £s you would have needed to buy an ounce of gold in the UK since the early 1970s.
Notice what happens each time Labour get into office?
Pundits and commentators follow one another - and fall for passing fads. This index is a far more constant measure of how various governments have managed our economy over the years.
Look at the graph - then try to guess when quantitative easing started.
Is it gold prices that have been increasing, or the value of our paper currency that has been steadily falling?
Posted on 23 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Crony capitalism, vested interests and too much government
Wesley Mouch is a character in Ayn Rand's epic novel, Atlas Shrugged. Mouch is a sleazy fixer in the pay of big corporations.
Rather than prosper by giving customers what they want, companies pay Mouch to ensure government contracts and regulations give them various advantages. At the same time, fixing the rules enables the big corporations to fix their profit margins and keep nimble competitors out.
Rand
’s novel paints a world in which crony capitalism – or corporatism – stifles innovation and growth. The economy slows. Work is in short supply. Tax demands ruin honest businesses. Endless directives regulate the minutae of all commercial activity.
The currency grows worthless. Folk grow used to poor customer service from faceless bureaucracies.
And the only ones who do well are those able to buy political favours on the inside track.
Fiction? Or a pretty good description of Britain today? Ponder as you watch Dispatches this evening.
Crony capitalism is what happens when you get too much government. Public policy-makers selling favours is what happens when public policy, rather than free enterprise, determines the allocation of wealth in a society.
Mr Mouch may not appear on tonight’s Dispatches, but he has more than a cameo role deciding how we are governed. He’s what happens when government spends the lion’s share of our GDP.
Vested interests are undermining free market capitalism with crony capitalism. It’s hurting our economy, undermining democracy and endangers confidence in both. Taking on these vested interests must mean less government.
Posted on 22 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
It's been going on for years
Last August in PR Week, I warned of "a big Westminster story about the way some lobbyists seek to buy influence".
Indeed. And I suspect there's more.
Posted on 22 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Who's for hire in SW1?
It's not only soon-to-be ex-MPs who allegedly pass through the revolving door from government to business.
The spotlight needs to be shone on unelected officials moving from Whitehall to the private sector. Given how enfeebled MPs and ministers have become, it's technocrats and civil servants that are now seen as real high-value hires by lobbyists.
Big corporate vested interests often prefer to have a former quangocrat, who took real decisions, on their payroll, rather than their ex-mouthpiece of a minister.
Do unelected officials trade in their contact book? You bet.
All "within the rules"? Isn't that what some MPs said about using public money to build up private property portfolios?
And who polices these rules? Whitehall grandees.
Things are going to have to change.
UPDATE: I see I've been attacked in the comment thread. By a Westminster insider. Who works in Whitehall. And who says they're looking to move into lobbying. Ouch.
Posted on 21 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Spuds away
This is the weekend to put my potatoes into the ground.
Let's hope there's no freak, post-global warming icy spell in the next few weeks ....
Posted on 20 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Biased Broadcasting Corporation
According to a survey by the Sun, the BBC is blatantly biased against the Conservative party.
My beef with the Beeb isn't just their partisan prejudice. It's their biased outlook I find most objectionable.
From their coverage of international affairs and the EU, to the banking crisis (remember Robert Peston's one-sided reporting?), to much of their drama and documentary output, the BBC's default setting is Guardianista left.
And look at who they get to make so many of their programmes? So often it's the same little comfy clique, with the same predictably establishment outlook.
Just as the blogosphere is inherently individualistic, a state-funded broadcasting corporation will always be corporatist.
Posted on 19 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Who are the climate change extremists?
Having been singled out by government minister, Ed Miliband, for being "irresponsible" for daring to question the state-funded consensus about climate change, I'm delighted to see him rebuked for overstating his case.
Two propaganda pieces advertisements (paid for out of our taxes, incidentally) have been banned by the Advertising Standards Agency for overstating their case about the risk of the climate changing. Hattip ConHome.
Incidentally, far from being a climate change "denier", I fully accept that the climate is in a state of constant flux. What I doubt is that human activity is responsible for such changes. A little such caution before committing £ billions is starting to look more and more responsible by the day.
There's much to be said for a little responsible scepticism, Ed. Especially when it involves more powers for politicians - and our taxes
.
Posted on 17 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Edward McMillan-Scott and the dead cat bounce
Last Friday, I heard that Edward McMillan-Scott was joining the Lib Dems.
Today, I read that the Lib Dems are down in the polls.
Some on the left have written up EMS’s antics as a defection. Let’s be clear – he did not leave the Conservative party over Michal Kaminski, the leader of the new Conservative group in Brussels. He left because he fancied being Vice-President of the European Parliament.
He insisted on standing against the official Tory candidate and lost the Whip in consequence.
As for the accusations against Kaminski, they’ve been pretty comprehensively demolished here.
The interesting question is not what actually motivates longserving Brussels grandees, like McMillan-Scott. Rather it is why the corporate commentariat (as opposed to the blogosphere) take his self-justification at face value.
Posted on 16 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Theresa in the Telegraph
Great interview in the Telegraph Business Section with future Transport Minister. Theresa
Villiers. Read it here.
With Theresa in charge, we’ll at last get a transport policy that puts the traveling public first – rather than the big corporate interests.
She’s stuck to her guns opposing the third runway at Heathrow. Thanks
to her quiet determination, there’s a broad - and growing - coalition behind her idea of a high speed rail link via Heathrow.
Posted on 16 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
We will fight them in the veggie patch ....
Now the EU has banned pesticide sprays to deal with carrot fly, an allotment holder friend in Clacton has passed on a tip for keeping the beasties at bay; onions.
Apparently, carrot fly don't like onions - so the idea is that you grow a row of them either side of your carrots.
Yesterday I sowed two onion rows to stand sentry-like against marauding carrot fly. Will let you know if it works ....
But how might I best ward off EU officials from my veggie patch? Garlic, perhaps?
Posted on 15 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Children's Commissar must go
Maggie Atkinson, the Children’s Commissioner, wants the age of criminal responsibility to be raised from ten to twelve.
Is this the same Maggie Atkinson that was overwhelmingly rejected for the role of Children’s Commissioner, when she appeared before the Commons select committee on which I sit?
Is she the same Ms Atkinson who was appointed to the £130,000-or-so role all the same? Appointed despite Gordon Brown saying that there needed to pre-appointment confirmation hearing for precisely such roles?
There are arguments for and against raising the age of criminal responsibility. There is no case whatsoever for having the decision shaped by unaccountable, anti-democratic quangocrats like Ms Atkinson.
The Children’s Commissioners role is to be the independent voice of children and to speak up in their interests. I have yet to hear Ms Atkinson explain how children’s interests would be protected by not prosecuting those who murder children.
She has zero democratic mandate. In a democracy, she must have no role determining public policy.
Posted on 14 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
A rightwing Jon Cruddas?
Olly Deed of LabourList describes me as a rightwing Jon Cruddas in an interview about the impact of the internet on politics and government.
I think it's meant as a compliment - to me, but not perhaps Mr Cruddas.
I met Olly after speaking at a Fabian conference, and he has some interesting insights on the subject himself.
I really do wonder how it is that the British Left, which once stood for the dispersal of power and against remote elites, has ended up on the side of remote officials, quangos, human rights lawyers and Eurocrats. Not exactly true to the spirit of the Levellers or the Chartists, is it?
Posted on 13 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Lost in translation
Back in December 2007, Home Office Local Government minister Hazel Blears urged councils to spend less on translation. In February 2008, she said learning English must be an "absolute priority" for migrants to the UK.
Yet in 2008-09, the Home Office spent £67.9 million on translation.
Either ministers aren't in control of their own bureaucracies. Or they take us for fools. Or both.
You can't trust a word this government says.
Posted on 12 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Drafting the manifesto
Regular readers will know that I do rather like to contribute when it comes to policy suggestions.
I'm therefore especially pleased to have been allowed to write a section of the manifesto. The Spectator magazine manifesto, that is.
It's inside this week's issue of the Spectator - on sale for a mere £1.95.
I
n case anyone happens to be a bit short of big ideas to fix broken Britain, they'll find plenty in there.
My own section explains precisely what an incoming government could do to get Parliament off its knees, restore purpose to politics, make MPs answer to the people they're supposed to serve - and help cut the deficit.
All in five easy steps - which could be undertaken before the summer recess.
Posted on 11 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
That really showed me
Britain
has a Minister for Europe, Chris Bryant MP
.
I’m delighted to have been singled out by him in a speech he made yesterday to lefty organisation Progress.
Chris attacks me for wanting to give the people an in / out EU referendum.
Yes, Chris, indeed I do.
Like you, Chris, I stood for election on a manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on the European Constitution / Lisbon Treaty.
Unlike you, I kept my word.
Chris accuses me of wanting to give the people the final say over our Europe policy - rather than just politicians like him and me. Yep. Guilty as charged.
Posted on 10 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Recovery requires lower taxes, less regulation
Normally, a fall in the value of the £ would mean exports increase relative to imports. Latest figures, however, suggest that hasn't happened.
Sterling
fell - and exports decreased compared to imports.
Perhaps after decades of high taxation and invasive regulation, it's getting pretty tough for our businesses to actually produce things folk would want to buy in an open world market.
Our wealth creators now need permission from an army of officials - funded out of the taxes they have to pay - just to go about their business.
And so guess what? There's now less wealth being created.
Posted on 10 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Jack Straw defending Westminster old guard
Jack Straw is a one of Westminster's great political survivors. Part of this, I’m certain is down to the fact that he’s actually rather a polite and decent man.
He's been in the Cabinet for over a decade, and held many big ministerial jobs. A feather for each wind that blows, he was Blairite when it paid to be Blairite. Now he works for Gordon Brown.
Yet he seems to have worked himself up in to an uncharactistic flap this evening over David Cameron's plans to reduce the number of MPs by 10 percent.
In a speech to the Hansard society, Straw apparently says cutting the number of politicians would be "dangerous, destructive and anti-democratic".
Tell that to the voters, Jack.
There are too many MPs sitting in a supine, spineless House of Commons. We need fewer of them. Those that remain should do their job of holding government to account, not sucking up to it. To ensure that they keep their promises, we need direct democracy, including open primaries and popular initiative. Then, at last, our MPs might be properly accountable to the folk they're supposed to serve.
Establishment figures like Jack Straw might not like it, but it’s time for change in Westminster.
Posted on 9 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
From Baker to Balls
Four former Education Ministers appeared before the education select committee yesterday; Ken Baker, David Blunkett, Estelle Morris and Charles Clarke.
At last I understand why we have the education system that we have. For decades, each new set of politicians thinks they know what needs to be done. Few stop to ask if it is really right for people in SW1 to impose these decisions in the first place.
The case for having a state-run curriculum and testing was never really made. There was an assertion made that a curriculum was needed to help children move from school to school - and that politicians needed to have "levers to pull".
There was an assumption that if something has to be nation-wide, it must be run by government.
Lord Baker told me that officials in Washington used to bemoan the fact that the United States never had a national curriculum set in Washington. While a French Minister, on the other hand, personally dictated the content of the French one.
"Indeed" I replied. "And one country invented the internet and the other didn’t."
Posted on 9 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Why defence inflation is sky high
"The MoD faces a higher rate of inflation than other organisations because the prices of the goods and services it buys increase very quickly" writes James Kirkup in the Telegraph. That might superficially tell us why the defence budget is under pressure, but it explains very little.
Why is it that "the prices of the goods and services MoD buys" increases so quickly?
Inflation happens, it is often said, when too much money is chasing too few goods and services. However, we know that there's certainly not too much money in the defence budget. On the contrary, there's way too little.
So what about there being too few goods and services?
"Defence inflation" is caused by deliberate constraints on the supply of goods and services. It's government policy to favour certain contractors, and to prevent other businesses being able to supply goods and services more cheaply.
And guess what? Without competition, some contractors are able to bump up prices. Worse, the budget is poorly allocated. For example, it has been suggested by some that helicopters that could be bought for less than £10 million are purchased for over £20 million.
There'd be far less "defence inflation" if we spent the defence budget more wisely. Incidentally, our armed forces might then be able to get the kit they need, rather than what politicians and big business decide they should have.
Posted on 9 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Where did all the money go?...
... Asks Icelandic film director Gunnar Sigurdsson. Never likely to win an Oscar, this short film - Maybe I should have – possess a question that needs to be taken rather more seriously than any Hollywood jamboree.
For most of the past decade, banks seemed to be rolling in money. Now, as any small business looking for a loan can tell you, there's much less.
Why?
Because a lot of what we thought was money was really credit. What they call “fractional reserve banking” means that a lot of the liquidity in our economy is really a loan piled upon a loan. Piled upon on loan. Upon a loan. And so on. This credit pyramid dwarfed real money by more than 30 times at the time of the crunch.
So much for monetarist economists controlling the money supply. Most of the time they can't even calculate it, let alone control it.
Once the credit bubble unravels, as it always does, what seemed like money disappears into thin air. Worse, it takes real money, put aside by real savers and hard working folk, with it.
If bogus money is the problem, what is the solution?
The one thing that won't get us out of this monetary mess - in Iceland or anyplace else - is yet more thin-air money. That's what got us into it.
Yet money-out-of-nothing is precisely the Bank of England's remedy. Rather than solve the problem caused by the disappearance of bogus money, printing more money and pumping in more credit will just wreck the worth of what sound money still remains.
Perhaps our central bankers actually want to destroy the purchasing power of the pound? What other plans does the British state have to meet it's obligations to existing bond holders, future pensioners and bloated statism?
Posted on 8 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
TV documentaries
Three times in as many months I've been invited to take part in documentaries about David Cameron.
"... So you can talk about how you worked with him on policy before the last election .... blah blah ...".
And three times I said a polite "no".
Posted on 7 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
EU Referendum Bill
Fresh from their victory over the Lisbon Treaty EU Constitution, I see that the Brussels elites now push for an EU public prosecutor and for a new EU tax.
So much for the idea that the EU is somehow "moving our way".
It doesn't have to be this way.
My Private Members Bill - read it here - puts on the Parliamentary agenda the possibility of an in / out referendum for the first time.
The Euro elite want you to think that there is no alternative to our current relations with Brussels. They want you to believe it is both desirable and inevitable that we surrender our democracy to supranational technocrats; that our EU entanglements are irreversible.
But change is possible.
Help me use the wisdom of the crowd to review this Bill. Let me know if you approve of it. Please pass on the link to it, debate it and make suggested amendments ....
Posted on 6 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Crunchy conservatism
I've already put the shallots and the rhubarb in. In doors, the fruit cuttings (boysenberry, gooseberry, josterberry, plus a something-or-other berry) are coming on nicely - a bit of leaf emerging.
I bought loads of seeds off Alan Romans this year. They're sitting in the seed tin, but I'm itching to start sowing. Is it still a bit early, unless indoors or in a cold frame?
Tips and suggestions please ....
Posted on 5 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Thought for the day
"Whenever loans were systematically made up from demand deposits, the historical constant in banking appears to be eventual failure". Thus writes Jesus De Soto on page 69 of Money, Credit and Economic Cycles.
And he wrote that over a decade before our own financial crisis.
Posted on 5 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Defence procurement - who has the courage to fix it?
Not only is the defence budget squandered, but MoD officials asked to account for the £billion funding gap were “
at best confused and unhelpful and at worst deliberately obstructive
”. That's according to a report out today by the Defence Select Committee.
Indeed. We pay a high price for running such a ruinously protectionist Defence Industrial Strategy Scam.
Money that could buy the best kit for our troops ends up being spent on what it suits the contractors to supply. The taxpayer is ripped off while our armed forces go without. And accountability to Parliament is subverted by officials unwilling to be frank about the scale of what is happening.
Defence procurement is broken because it is protectionist. We need to expose those who supply defence kit to choice and competition. Who has the courage to take on the vested interests?
Posted on 4 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Is the Commons about to get off its knees?
I fear that if the Commons were to get off its knees it'd merely fall flat on its face since it has no backbone.
But today a series of reforms will be voted on at Westminster that seek to give the Commons some spine.
Specifically proposed in The Plan (steps 3 and 5), and now put forward by the Wright Committee, these changes boil down to something simple; first, the Commons, rather than government whips, deciding who holds all the key Commons posts – from Speaker to select committee chairmen. Second, they'll allow those you voted to be MPs to determine their own Commons timetable.
Hardly revolutionary, it might however mean MPs start actually holding government to account. Which is precisely why the dark side in SW1 oppose it, and decided to hold it on a day when few will be in Westminster.
Today's choice is simple; either MPs decide that they answer foremost to whips, and they remain wedded to a party tribalism, which people have grown to despise. Or, alternatively, they must decide if they answer primarily to local people, and exist to exercise their own judgment in holding government to account.
It's a free vote.
UPDATE: This afternoon, the dark side lost on every count (if you overlook Harriet Harman's decision to unilaterally take the election of Speaker off the order paper).
A great day for reformists - the dynamics of future Parliaments could be very different. The potential for an independent legislature vis-a-vis the executive is there ....
Posted on 4 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Honest politics requires honest money
Can you have honest politicians if you don't have honest money?
From Hampden's ship money to the Boston tea party, our idea of democracy is founded on the idea that taxation is related to representation. You're taxed only with the say-so of elected representatives. And those who spend the proceeds are made accountable to them in return.
But what if public authorities found a way to circumvent that democratic scrutiny? What if they could spend what they like, without needing approval at the ballot box?
Imagine if we were to have, say, a fiat currency, like we've had since the 1970s. Imagine if that enabled a series of expansionary monetary policies, which would transfer wealth to the state - a bit like quantitative easing.
Dishonest money - which could be debased - would allow dishonest politics. How come?
Well, for a start, government could take wealth from you by stealth, without explicitly taxing you.
But we'd also start to see a disconnect between the tax and spend options that you thought you were voting for, and what actually happened.
And maybe, after a generation or so, folk might start to say things like "why bother voting". Turnout at elections could even start to fall.
The currency might start to buy less than in previous years. For example, ordinary houses might start to sell for what would have once seemed impossibly vast fortunes.
Perhaps if we are serious about renewing democracy, we don't only need to clean up Westminster. Nor must we just make government answer to Parliament and Parliament answer to the people. We also need to ensure that monetary policy is not left to unelected elites the way we have since the 1970s.
Read this excellent essay by James Tyler on the Cobden Centre's site for some interesting insights into the way dishonest politicians have fiddled our nation's finances.
Posted on 3 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Cold winter? Must be climate change
Global warming? It was the coldest winter in Britain for a generation according to this article in the Guardian.
No wonder certain "experts" have started to call it climate change, rather than global warming. It helps avoid messy things, like facts, getting in the way.
Of course, when it goes against the notion of global warming, we have to recognise that the weather is not the same thing as climate. I just wish that the distinction was made each time there was a drought or unusually hot summer.
If you think this winter was cold, it was nothing compared average winters during the pre-industrial Little Ice Age.
Just because the climate has changed at the same time that there has been industrialisation, does that mean one caused the other? And is one allowed to question those who assert causation rather than merely correlation?
Posted on 2 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
BBC drags feet over freebies
Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee, BBC head honcho Mark Thompson promised to disclose what freebies and tickets it gave to various public officials. Given that it is public money, and that some may feel the BBC has a vested interest defending the broadcasting status quo amongst key decision-makers, it's important that we know these details.
The deadline for responding expired last week. Still no data.
Is the BBC getting cold feet?
I specifically asked Mr Thompson
"Could you let the Committee have a list of all the free tickets and free access that you have given to all elected officials and regulators?"
He indicated that he would.
I then went on to say "I should like to put it on my blog, if I may. If you could let us know who is going to Glyndebourne, who is going to Glastonbury, because some people could say you are buying influence with taxpayers' money to maintain the status quo. I think the public has the right to know which elected officials and unelected officials are benefiting from these arrangements."
You can't really be clearer than that, can you? It was pretty obvious that I sought the data in order to make it public.
I hope BBC chiefs are not seeking to renege unilaterally on a clear undertaking made to Parliament, or try to insist that the data is only handed over on a non-disclosure basis.
Posted on 2 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell
The Levellers would vote Conservative
Anti-establishment and radical? Must be leftwing.
That at least seemed to be the subtext of David Dimbleby's disappointing Age of Revolution episode on BBC One last night. The photography may have been great, but the script was lazy.
Assessing the civil war, battle re-enactment enthusiasts explained they'd have backed the Levellers and the Parliamentary cause because they "vote Labour".
The idea that the Levellers belong to the contemporary left is simply wrong.
The Levellers wanted to radically disperse power away from remote and unaccountable elites. They wanted lower taxes, more trade, and a less belligerent foreign policy. Most of all, they felt that those who make the law should be accountable to those who live under it.
Yet Labour is the party of a remote, detached Europhile elite; of the Human Rights establishment and remote EU commissars; of the quango state with its army of executive appointees; of overbearing, intrusive government. Charles I would have felt quite at home.
Which party, on the other hand, devolved control over economic things in the 1980s, giving people - not planners - control over their lives? Which party today proposes a radical decentralisation of power and localism? Which party is looking to make politics and public services more directly accountable to the people?
The Conservative party is the party of the Levellers.
Incidentally, I can't imagine that the Levellers would have approved of compulsory taxes levied without consent, such as the BBC's license fee.
UPDATE: "But the Levellers wanted to disperse property ownership, too. They were hostile to property rights" suggest one or two readers.
Nonsense. If by the Levellers we mean those brave English radicals of 1649, they wanted nothing of the sort. Twentieth century Marxist historians discovered various groups that did want communal land ownership etc - diggers et al - and tried to imply they were proto-Marxists. But the actually Levellers simply do not fit into that bracket.
Posted on 1 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell