Liberty Scott UK

UK General Election 2015 live blog: 0500

2015-05-08T05:02:00.001+01:00

Labour 140 (-31)
Conservative 120 (+8)
SNP 50 (+44)
Liberal Democrats 6 (-21)
UKIP 1
Others 19

Vote share:
Labour 34%
Conservative 31%
Liberal Democrats 7%
UKIP 11%
SNP 9%

UK General Election 2015: Live Blog 0430

2015-05-08T04:30:00.001+01:00

Labour gains Hornsey and Wood Green (my old constituency) from Lib Dem Lynne Featherstone, after apologising for a smear campaign, that worked.

Liberal Democrats getting wiped out in London, Conservatives and Labour gaining the spoils.

UKIP on the board, as ex.Tory Douglas Carswell takes his seat at Clacton.

Key UKIP target, Thurrock stays Conservative, Labour second. First Past the Post means the UK's third largest party by vote may end up being fifth or lower.

Overall result:

Labour 118
Conservatives 83
SNP 46
Liberal Democrats 4
UKIP 1
Others 18

Plenty of safe rural seats to come...

UK General Election 2015: Live Blog 0400

2015-05-08T03:59:00.000+01:00

A great win, as Energy Secretary Ed Davey of the Lib Dems, loses his seat. Davey was an acolyte of the renewable energy/climate change fetishism.

Labour's Caroline Flint trying to spin this result as a loss for the government.

Labour's Chukka Umunna increases his majority, a possible candidate for the leadership, he is to the right of Ed, much closer to the Blairite tradition. Said during campaign he didn't get into politics to increase taxes.

Liberal Democrats retaining 1 seat in Scotland, Orkney and Shetland, which thoroughly rejected independence. Hard working, independently minded folk who have little time for the mainland nationalist socialism.

Glasgow North East, Labour's safest seat in Scotland, goes SNP. Labour wiped out in Scotland unless some outlier emerges.

George Galloway looks out in Bradford East - excellent news

Conservatives gain two seats from Lib Dems in Wales. Plaid Cymru fourth in vote share in Wales behind Labour, Conservatives and UKIP. Welsh nationalism is very much a minority sport, Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood's TV appearances on national debates hasn't worked.

Result at 0400

Labour 94
Conservative 54
SNP 39
Liberal Democrats 3
Others 16

UK General Election Live Blog 2015: 0330

2015-05-08T03:31:00.001+01:00

Gordon Brown's old seat Kirkcaldy sees Labour wiped out, a majority of 23,000 completely trounced.

Brecon and Radnorshire and Burnley are both losses for Liberal Democrats to Conservatives and Labour respectively.

Ealing Central and Acton go from Conservatives to Labour.

Labour gaining two seats in England more than wiped out by the 27% swing against it in Scotland.

Over 6% swing from Liberal Democrats to Conservatives, and same to Labour.

Labour front bench starting to sound defeated, but lead Scottish nationalist socialist denier Alex Salmond still claiming there could be a "progressive" majority in Westminster.

Warwickshire North - Labour's number one target, stays Conservative.

Colchester goes from Liberal Democrats to Conservatives.

Love the Daily Mirror front page

Early conclusions:

- Labour not trusted with the economy given Conservative's led recovery

- No Liberal Democrat credit for the recovery

- Labour's class war rhetoric has failed, miserably.

- UKIP has hurt Labour, but hasn't broken through into winning seats

- Scottish nationalism is the beast that has swallowed up all in its wake

Telegraph columnist Dan Hodges, long damning Labour's leftward switch, has been vindicated.

Actual count:

Labour 37

Conservative 24

SNP 25

Liberal Democrat 1

Others 13

UK General Election Live Blog 2015: 0250

2015-05-08T02:50:00.002+01:00

Devastation as a 20 year old student (SNP) beats former Blair/Brown era Minister and Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander.

Dundee West, Glenrothes, Falkirk, Ochil and Perthshire and Dunbartonshire West also swing heavily from Labour to SNP. Already SNP more than doubled seats from 6 to 13, but numbers look like Labour almost entirely wiped out in Scotland.

The nationalist genie set free by Scottish devolution by the Blair Government has grown into a beast that has swallowed up its founders. However, if the figures remain bleak for Labour, the SNP will be a loud opposition.

No Conservative losses at all so far.

One Liberal Democrat loss (Scotland)

Big story is still Labour losing heavily in Scotland...

UK General Election 2015 Live Blog: 0220

2015-05-08T02:20:00.001+01:00

Liberal Democrats hold "safe" Welsh seat of Ceridigion, Plaid Cymru fail to break through.

Kilmarnack & Loudon in Scotland swaps 12,000 Labour majority for a 13,000 SNP majority.

South Antrim sees the more moderate UUP beating the DUP by 1000, a win for the UUP.

Labour target seat Nuneaton saw Conservative majority increase.

Liberal Democrat candidates looking absolutely devastated, proportion of vote lost 17%

At the moment it looks like:

- Labour has bled to the Conservatives in England
- Labour has almost bled dry to the SNP in Scotland
- Liberal Democrats bled to Labour, Conservatives, UKIP and SNP everywhere
- UK voters have decisively voted against the Labour Party
- SNP looks like demanding independence again...

There is no right to not be offended

2015-01-09T13:53:00.000+00:00

Please support http://www.jesusandmo.net/

The following images may offend Muslims, Christians, supporters of Francois Hollande, Marine Le Pen and those of a sensitive nature. If you don't like it, you have choices.

Because the reason to not publish anything should not be based on the fear that one will be killed for doing so.

Asian rape gangs? Don't be racist

2014-08-26T17:13:00.001+01:00

Yes, that is, in essence, one of the damning findings of the report published today that comprises the findings of an inquiry carried out by Professor Alexis Jay looked at how Rotherham Council's children's services department dealt with cases involving child exploitation between 1997 and 2013.

You can read the report here. It is not just a damning indictment of Council staff, but also Councillors (in a Council that has been run by a large Labour majority since its inception in 1974) and the Police.

Key findings are:

- 1400 cases of child abuse over a 16 year period, of whom over one-third were already known to child protection authorities some down to the age of 11;

- Examples of "children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone";

- "They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated"

- Police regarded many victims with "contempt";

- Of three previous reports into the problems, one was suppressed and two others ignored.

Beyond the utter incompetence is a more sinister element, you see "By far the majority of perpetrators were described as Asian by victims", but Councillors preferred to treat such cases as "one-offs" refusing to see a pattern.

The bigger concern was "several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist. Others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so."

In other words, Council staff, with support from Councillors, were more concerned about being accused of racism, than they were about young girls being raped.

"One senior officer suggested that some influential Pakistani-heritage councillors in Rotherham had acted as barriers. Several councillors interviewed believed that by opening up these issues they could be 'giving oxygen' to racist perspectives that might in turn attract extremist political groups and threaten community cohesion"

Yes there was genuine fear of racist nationalist groups using reports of Pakistani gangs committed sex crimes to stoke hatred, but what was the most important thing here? Avoiding political fallout and backlash, or protecting the vulnerable?

The cultural relativism also nearly risked Pakistani women who were abused and given shelter.

"several of those involved in the operational management of services reported some attempts to pressurise them into changing their approach to some issues. This mainly affected the support given to Pakistani-heritage women fleeing domestic violence, where a small number of councillors had demanded that social workers reveal the whereabouts of these women or effect reconciliation rather than supporting the women to make up their own minds".

The Council leader has resigned, but I am less interested in who is found accountable, charged and sued for this right now, than the philosophical failings that it has exposed.

Check your privilege

Identity Politics is an arm of new-leftist political philosophy that takes class analysis (whereby your perspectives are driven by your class, defined mostly by wealth) and extends it to race and sex. It identifies racial groups as being either privileged or disadvantaged, and by extension every member of such group is deemed to have such privilege or disadvantage, from birth.

This is applied primarily in the Anglo-Saxon world, with the United States leading with the "check your privilege" expression deemed appropriate on the basis that all white European Americans are deemed privileged, whilst African-American, Hispanic and Native Americans are not (Asian Americans are inconvenient to this theory so typically ignored).

In the UK, it is more complex, but in essence white British people are deemed to have privilege over any migrants from non-European backgrounds. This is deemed to be so because of historic state and societal racism. Yes, that does mean that men of Pakistani background are deemed disadvantaged over people from white British backgrounds.

The implication is that privilege brings power, unavailable to the "disadvantaged". Don't confuse things by pointing out if the privileged person is poor or uneducated (although being a woman and disabled loses you "privilege points") or the "disadvantaged" person is a tycoon. Reality is relative, and Identity Politics acolytes trade in moral and cultural relativism, and in groups, never individuals. Individuals don't readily fit theories and disrupt careful classification.

So what may be said in Rotherham is that when confronted with evidence of gangs of Asian, predominantly Pakistani men, gangraping young girls, the "check your privilege" monitor went off in the heads of the Identity Politics trained officials and politicians. How racist to assume this is true or a pattern rather than an aberration? For the narrative of a gang of oppressed men raping young girls is difficult to reconstruct into the politically correct one. (i.e. poor people sometimes abuse their kids because life is too hard, as this Kiwi Marxist proclaims)

Instead of ignoring the politics and doing their jobs, they rubbed their hands in anxiety, not about the crimes, or the safety of the girls, but about how "offended" some would be at the fact that groups of Asian men felt freely able to embark on brutal, sadistic and egregious sex crimes on vulnerable young girls.

You see the men who abused the girls thought of them as "sluts", "deserving it" with a level of misogyny that all leftwing oriented feminists would jump on in an instant if it were not men of an ethnic minority background. However, the Identity Politics element makes them pause, for they fear that identifying the cultural factor (as distinct from racial) will be seen as racist and scapegoating.

Yet the cultural factor is clear - rampant misogyny and belief that young girls exist as the sexual playthings of men, and that their religion and race will protect them from law enforcement, for they can cry "racism" for being "targeted".

Those who thought they could protect Rotherham's Asian community from a neo-fascist nationalist backlash now risk causing much more harm to the law abiding members of the Asian communities in Rotherham than what would have happened had they done their jobs properly. Not least because it was Asian girls and women who were also victims, and because it fueled an attitude amongst perpetrators that they could act with impunity.

You can bet that racist groups, ramshackle as they are, will find this abject failure to protect young girls because of the race of those who raped them, will happily feed the racism they were trying to avoid, because of the racism they chose to apply themselves.

Ultimately, what's wrong with Identity Politics, is that it is juvenile. A simplistic attempt to try to extend the banality of Marxist group analysis onto wider groups, that has little more than superficial value in explaining outcomes and providing answers as to the causes and solutions or wider social problems.

For in the UK, power in any relationship, is a function of multiple factors. Family, age, size, wealth, legal authority, employment and yes, sex and in some cases race. It depends on the individuals.

It is the Identity Politics adherents that ignore the individuals, and focus on race, and as a result, in their jobs, they truly did ignore the individuals, who were victims.

I would vote UKIP, but it is not libertarian

2014-05-22T09:40:00.001+01:00

I want to vote UKIP in the European Parliamentary elections today. There have been and are a lot of reasons to commend UKIP, but despite a plaintiff claim by Nigel Farage on Conservative Home, I am strongly inclined to not put a cross beside UKIP - because UKIP is no longer the libertarian-inclined party I warmed to, and was a member of for a year. I say this with great hesitation, because I passionately believe the UK needs a party that is led and populated by people who want much less government, I believe exit from the European Union is, unfortunately, essential to achieve this, and I also think, fundamentally, Nigel Farage errs on the side of less intervention.

What's the problem? Well it's all about Romanians. Yes there have been plenty of instances of Romanian gangs engaging in criminal activity in the UK, but you can talk about disproportionate numbers of crimes committed by race in several other dimensions as well. Had Nigel Farage said "you know the difference between a group of black men moving next door and a German family", then he wouldn't and couldn't have got out of it by saying "well the crime statistics show a disproportionate number of prisoners are black". It isn't just taboo because it is politically incorrect, it is because the implication that everyone else should look upon people of a certain ethnicity with suspicion that they could be criminal because of their ethnicity leads you down a path that is utterly reprehensible.

For in that are the seeds of collective guilt, the seeds of racial discrimination and hatred.

So whilst Farage initially wrote off his radio comment as just being because he was "tired", this press release killed my vote for UKIP.

Blame whoever wrote the headline to it, because I don't need to quote from the press release to "get it". In my office I work with a Romanian woman, who is hard working, diligent and conscientious and who arrived in the UK legally before the "doors were opened". I don't believe she was after "my job" and I also don't believe I'd have reason to be concerned if her and her friends or family moved in next door by merely the fact that they are Romanian.

Had Farage come out and said his concern was about open borders allowing criminals to live in the UK unchecked from other countries, not just Romanians and that it was highly inappropriate and wrong to appear to single them out, he might have saved it. However he didn't, he and the party, engaged in the sort of slimy two-faced contradictions it accuses the others of undertaking.

The press release said "Police figures are quite clear that there is a high level of criminality within the Romanian community in Britain. This is not to say for a moment that all or even most Romanian people living in the UK are criminals."

"Lots of black people commit crime, but most of them don't." Imagine that statement, for it could be said to be true, but how is it treating people as individuals? On their deeds not their background?

I'm not one to throw about the "racist" insult as is the tactic of all too many on the left, and by no means do I think UKIP is anything approaching the BNP. Indeed, by wanting a common approach to immigration from all countries, it resists this, but it is absolutely true that UKIP's campaign this year hasn't been about liberating the UK from the EU primarily, it has been about scaremongering about immigration. As one wit quipped, "if you are scared that a poorly educated, non-English speaking eastern European is going to take your job, then maybe you might just be quite shit at it".

There was a lot that could have been focused on more, like the contribution the EU has to the cost of living, but instead it focused on this:

UKIP used to say on its website:

WHAT WE BELIEVE IN

We believe in the right of the people of the UK to govern ourselves, rather than be governed by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels (and, increasingly, in London and even your local town hall).

We believe in the minimum necessary government which defends individual freedom, supports those in real need, takes as little of our money as possible and doesn’t interfere in our lives.

What libertarian would find that to not be in the right direction, with the only slip to freedom being a reference to what would be a basic welfare state, but which would be a revolutionary change from the socialism of Red Ed's Labour, the do-gooding enviro-statism of the Liberal Democrats, to the diluted, Green-tinged, petty statist Conservatives?

Sure there were some signs that the instincts of some in the party were wrong. Some defended the NHS, some argued against liberalising planning laws. In fact the party's local government policy says that it would stop housing development on green space, even though the primary cause of the housing crisis is the neo-Stalinist planning system that locks up half of the land in London in less than pristine greenbelt land (and a quarter of that land would supply London's housing needs for a generation).

Then the EU was blamed for HS2, the privatisation of Royal Mail, the privatisation of the NHS and more latterly the crisis in Ukraine. There are enough reasons to criticise the EU for its wasteful subsidies and fetish for regulation without making up conspiracy theories about how the EU changes policies that are outside its remit, or making excuses for corrupt kleptocratic revanchist thugs. I've argued vehemently with several UKIPpers on these points, using facts and quoting European legislation (see I know this stuff!), and they either fold quickly and say it doesn't matter or claim I've been duped because somehow I can read legislation and understand it with a law degree.

A party that proudly can't be bothered to use reason in its arguments, and more recently blames Russian irredentism on the EU, is not just getting it wrong, but is damaging the cause.

Now Romanians have been scapegoated, and there isn't really any shame about it.

As Toby Young says in the Telegraph today about Farage :

When he sticks to that subject, he's an excellent proponent of the argument. But when he brings Romanians into it, when he smears an entire nation to make the case against immigration, he's clearly doing the cause more harm than good. You can sense more moderate voters recoiling every time he strays into this territory. It's as if the Ukip leader is confirming the caricature of Euroscepticism that the BBC, the FT, the Independent and the Guardian have been trying to paint for the past 30 years – the Eurosceptic as swivel-eyed loon, as Little Englander, as closet racist. People like me have always claimed that's a straw man. But Nigel Farage is that straw man.

In the local election my choice is clear. My borough is Labour dominated, in my ward there are three Conservative councillors, and one UKIP candidate, who hasn't bothered to distribute a leaflet outlining his views on council spending, housing, roads and schools (council issues), so he doesn't deserve my vote (especially given UKIP's opposition to new housing on the greenbelt). I'll vote for the Conservative councillors on their individual merits.

I have a mild tribal instinct to treat UKIP as Thatcherite Conservatives, but it isn't - despite Labour's protestations, it isn't by a mile. I detest the simpering, ecologist felching, gutless cowardice of some of the Conservative leadership, albeit this has changed somewhat in government, but give the choice I have decided to vote Conservative. Not because it will make a difference, but because I cannot give moral agency to UKIP campaigning as it has done, and because polling indicates that UKIP may win, with Labour second and the Conservatives a close third. I'd much rather give the Conservatives a chance of beating Labour, than give my moral endorsement to UKIP's campaign.

UKIP is proudly seeking working class Labour voters. Good on it, I'd be thrilled to see Labour terrified in the heartlands it has so cynically taken for granted. However, that isn't me, and I would much rather that a reasoned debate be had about the European Union and what the UK could be like without it, than scaremongering about an entire nation and evoking "understanding" for Vladimir Putin.

Quite simply, despite much that is good about UKIP, it is now poisoned, and I can't bring myself to endorse a party that tolerates that poison. I'll vote Conservative because the European Parliament itself is not that important, and because the candidates themselves are fighting for less control from Brussels, and include some rather fine individuals (e.g. Daniel Hannan) who consistently argue against environmentalism, socialism and the travesties of the Common Agricultural Policy and EU waste. It's not the UKIP I wished I could have voted for, but it's in the right direction, its professional and it doesn't besmirch individual nationalities.

Farage's gaffe on Ukraine

2014-04-02T11:18:00.003+01:00

More often than not I agree with Nigel Farage.   He generally has disdain for statist authority, tends to prefer to leave people alone to live their lives the way they want and his stance against the EU is primarily (although not exclusively) about wanting less rules from Brussels, not more rules from Westminster (the Tony Benn stance).

I agree with withdrawal from the EU for many reasons, most of all its strong protectionist instincts, the overwhelming push to introduce pan European legislation on matters that shouldn't be regulated and the unaccountable nature of the European Council and European Commission, not least because the European Parliament has no powers to repeal or introduce legislation. I'm no worshipper of democracy, but law making should not be done by appointed officials, rather than elected representatives, not least because the latter can be removed.

I don't believe the EU should have a foreign policy that extends beyond trade, not least because the interests and positions of Member States are wildy diverse. How can you reasonably represent a common view from leading NATO Members that are Nuclear Weapons States (the UK and France) against neutral states (Austria, Ireland and Sweden)? You need only look at the sclerosis the EU has with disputes between its Member States of this nature (Gibraltar-UK) to see this, as well as how ineffectual it is in dealing with issue facing its Member States from threatening behaviour.

However, when Nigel Farage debated Nick Clegg saying the EU had "blood on its hands" and spoke rather approvingly of Vladimir Putin he opened a can of worms that he didn't really intend. Hence the backtracking via press release.

You see Nigel's most appealing trait is that he speaks off the cuff, he says what he feels like saying, it isn't particularly well rehearsed and that shows, and people respect it. What it means is that sometimes what he says points to much much more than he really means. That is what has happened over Ukraine.

Let's get some facts absolutely straight here. To claim the EU has "blood on its hands" and to portray it as some sort of imperialist aggressor, it so ludicrous as to be beyond parody. It parallels the simplistic jingoistic propaganda emanating from ~~TASS~~ RT, and makes Farage, and those in UKIP ignorantly parroting his stance seem like the Kremlin's useful idiots.   Indeed I suspect that is what the Kremlin's propagandists now think, as they now have more than a few UKIPpers with poor understanding of international relations and history now parroting views fed to them from the contrarian point of view.

Why? Well it is an easy kneejerk opinion to take that whatever Governments and mainstream political parties in the UK, US, France and Germany say, and the EU, the truth must be the opposite. After all, aren't the political elite incompetent, self-serving liars as a matter of course?

Incompetent? Frequently. Self-serving? Often.   Liars? When they feel they have to.

Yet how come the political elite of Russia are not also painted with the same brush?

The narrative that is being passed around by some in UKIP is that the EU is substantially to blame for

the conflict in Ukraine, by leading many Ukrainians to expect, unrealistically, that the country could become an EU Member State, and so protest against the corrupt Putin-esque regime of Yanukovych. Unfortunately, he falls into the trap that the EU also falls into, of thinking itself to be far more important than it actually is.

The Yanukovych government was going to sign a free trade agreement with the EU, which oddly enough is what I expect Farage would want the UK to sign with the EU too. It rejected this for several reasons, one being that Vladimir Putin had made it clear that cheap oil and gas would no longer be available, because he felt snubbed - poor baby. It also saw that closer relations with the EU would expose the nastier side of Ukrainian governments. The rampant corruption and nepotism of a Putinesque regime was what they rejected.

So the protests were driven by fears of Ukraine becoming more like Russia, and indeed Yanukovych's attempts to pass anti-protest and anti-free speech laws were key to stirring protests. It was that, not the loss of an EU free trade agreement, that got people fired up. However, for many Ukrainians (admittedly not many Russian Ukrainians), they saw an embrace of the EU as liberating. A point that is inconvenient for Farage, because relatively speaking, the EU compared to a Soviet-style kleptocracy is liberating.

For, despite the many criticisms that can be laid at it, generally speaking western Europe does have the rule of law, it does have legal systems and institutions that typically are independent from politics (although the extent to which this is true in Bulgaria and Greece compared to Sweden and Luxembourg is another matter), where freedom of speech, in particular to criticise politicians's views and their lifestyle, is protected and where states are not ruled by single strongmen. It is easy and correct to damn the fiscal incontinence, the profligate and unsustainable welfare states, the constraints on free market capitalism , the rampant rent-seeking of EU profligacy and the long list of protectionist provisions at national and EU level, but for all that, Europeans are able to organise themselves freely. Politicians in western Europe are far more likely to be held accountable for criminal behaviour than those in the former USSR.

In short, Ukrainians protesting wanted their country to be more like western Europe and less like Russia. The regular (and continuing claims) that Ukraine had a "legitimate" President are just embarrassingly absurd. That "legitimate" President was ready to abolish free speech and to cement his rule by making elections how they are in Russia - charades to claim the facade of legitimacy over a system weighted almost completely against free and open political discourse.

Yes, a small number of Ukrainians are fascists who want to purge the country of Russians, but they are far from friendly towards the EU. Yes, Russian Ukrainians are right to be wary of such individuals, but to think the EU would tolerate and embrace this is quite wrong. Austria's government was ostracised when the so-called "Freedom Party" was part of a coalition government, and its platform was far less fascist than Svoboda. Hungary's existing government has faced sanctions when it drifted towards such policies.

So to blame the EU is simply wrong. It appears Farage's unbridled (and to be fair, understandable) hatred of the EU has meant it is now a scapegoat, for actions that were opportunistic by Moscow. Putin's regime created fear among Russians in Ukraine that they would face "oppression" under a fascist government, and that all of their jobs would disappear when Ukraine could no longer export so readily to Russia (not noting that the only reason this would happen is if Russia increases trade barriers with Ukraine). He focused especially on Crimea, given the ample Russian military presence there in the first place, to host a trumped-up referendum, not allowing open campaigning for a "no" vote, and using local and Russian mercenary forces to bully their way against the Ukrainian military and police.

It 's similar to what Russia has done in Georgia.

If anyone thinks that Brussels is to blame for this, then let's imagine the counterfactual. What if Ukrainians actually just protested against their government and overthrew it, without the EU having offered a free trade agreement? Does anyone really think Putin wouldn't have taken Crimea?

Unfortunately, Farage's stance is shared not only by the Kremlin, but by the radical leftwing peace movement (Stop the War coalition's statement in favour of Russia should put paid any claims it has to being anti-war) and by libertarian isolationists like Ron Paul.

The borders of a peaceful country have been changed, by the intervention of another state, on trumped up claims of fascism threatening their people.

I am far from surprised that typically pro-communist, anti-capitalist, anti-liberal democratic so-called "peace" movement backs Russia. It exposes it even more for what it is - a group of fifth columnist revolutionaries who think of peace only in terms of "don't fight against those opposing western capitalism".

Yet for UKIP to go down the ludicrous path of blaming the EU for events that are largely about relations between Ukraine and Russia is absurd.

Farage and other spokepeople should stop appearing on RT and being puppets brought out by the Kremlin to serve its interests. It doesn't serve British interests, nor the interests of anyone who genuinely believes in a smaller state and less government. After all, if you think the EU is oppressive, wait until your country takes orders from the Kremlin. That's something Ukrainians have known too well. Holodomor and the purge of the Crimean Tartars are actions that you wont see discussed on RT, as they don't fit history. Whereas exaggerating the size and the actions of fascist ultranationalists in Ukraine will be mentioned, a lot, as they do fit it.

Of course Western media are free to report on any of the above, RT is not.

Farage has got enough brickbats to throw at the EU, without, in spite of all he claims now, siding with the bullshit machine that is Kremlin propaganda.

He's fallen victim to his greatest asset - the ability to think on your feet and not to parrot media trained catchphrases. The problem being when your mouth runs away with your head, knowledge and understanding of complex events.

Budget 2014

2014-03-19T11:25:00.000+00:00

I agree with the IEA - Budgets should be scrapped. They are awful political exercises in running a lolly scramble, whereby the Chancellor of the Exchequer gets to exercise wholly inappropriate powers to dish out other people's money.

He seeks glory and gratitude from the various preferred parties who either get some of their money back (a tax cut, or even tax freezes are meant to gain applause) or get to spend other people's money.

There are two things I want from the Budget in principle, as for the detail, I have suggestions on those too, but here goes.

1. Stop overspending: After Labour bleating on about how the deficit was being cut "too far and too fast" (it has not been cut by half yet), now it is claiming it can balance the budget faster. Don't put up with that. Balance the budget faster by cutting the vast range of unnecessary spending, which will reduce the inevitable pressure on interest rates coming from inflation. It will have a short-term slow down effect on the economy, but the dynamic benefits of reducing the size of the state in the longer term will more than compensate for that. For after you balance the budget, a portion of surpluses can be dedicated to ever lower taxes.

You can scrap free bus travel and the winter fuel allowance, the former being a transfer to bus companies and the latter able to be offset by scrapping the social/environmental levies in energy bills and scrapping VAT on energy (the EC will say it is breaching the law, but tell them where to go, or find a way to get around it). Start cutting the foreign aid budget, scrapping the nonsensical 0.7% of GDP UN target which ignores the sizeable contribution of private donations and favours state aid over private charity. Run a scythe through future taxpayer funded spending plans on railways and inefficient local transport projects that demand ongoing subsidies. That includes admitting that HS2 will exacerbate the "north-south divide" and saying the project will wind down unless the private sector wants to finance, build, own and operate it. Announce that child benefit for new children will be scrapped in one year, so that over time this ridiculous subsidy for having children you can't afford comes to an end. Change pension indexation to match inflation not wages. Scrap government house building programmes in favour of replacing the Stalinist planning legislation with a property rights based approach that lets property owners build what they want, as long as they respect the property rights of others and negotiate compensation when infringing upon such rights.

Let's be clear, despite the regular misuse of language from the Prime Minister, the Government has not "tackled our debts". It has increased them. State spending must be cut until surpluses are being generated. It is hardly radical, it only needs a cut in state spending to 40% of GDP.

2. Reduce punitive, distorting taxes: As the IEA has suggested, there should be annual indexation of thresholds for taxes, this should include income tax, stamp duty and inheritance tax. However, more should be done. Stamp duty should be immediately reformed into a graduated tax, and the entry threshold for the tax lifted to the second tier. This will do much more to help people seeking to buy a home over time, and boost spending in the construction and associated sector than sub-prime mortgage backing. Air passenger duty should be reduced to the domestic flight level at all airports, both to boost tourism and reduce business travel costs. Of course the 45p tax rate should go, but that's politically too toxic before the election, so the income tax allowance should have the above £100,000 clawback lifted. It's either a taxable allowance or it isn't. Meanwhile, lifting it up to the minimum wage level should also be a priority. Scrap employer National Insurance (a tax on jobs if ever there was one), and restructure fuel duty by (much to Treasury's chagrin) hypothecating a suitable proportion for transport funding (about half of fuel duty would cover road and rail subsidies if you include vehicle excise duty) and that the government will cut fuel duty by 1p per annum every year until it gets to those levels. Announce the end to the TV licence and that the BBC will have transitional fixed taxpayer funding for the next settlement period, but will need to seek other ways of funding itself over that period.

In short, don't give away more of other people's money to "help" those who are better off helping themselves if they got their own money back.

Labour's response will always be spend more, pretend you can take it from the hated "rich" (whoever they are). Your response should be "we're giving people their money back" and every pound we spend is a pound someone else can't spend.

Is it fear or is it editorial judgment?

2014-01-30T21:29:00.001+00:00

In the past week, a battle within the Liberal Democrat Party has become news, if only because it highlights the clash between those who believe in absolute free speech, and those who think free speech should be tempered by it not "causing offence" to others - which of course is not free speech. The latter is the sort of "free speech" seen in China, when you can talk about anything, as long as it doesn't offend the Communist Party, or in Islamist countries where you can't offend the local clerics.

It is anything but liberal.

Nick Cohen in the Guardian has a good summary of the battle. In essence it went like this...

- A Sunday morning BBC discussion programme included two people who wore t-shirts from "Jesus and Mo". Here it is

Image on tshirt worn on "The Big Questions"

- On that show, a Liberal Democrat (and Muslim) candidate, Maajid Nawaz said he was not offended by the t-shirt images, and that he did not accept that Muslims who were spoke on behalf of all Muslims. He said that Muslim opinions were varied and diverse, and whilst some were offended, others were not. Others on the show said they were offended.

- Maajid Nawaz subsequently sent a Tweet of the image saying he did not find it offensive.

- Muhammad Shafiq, a Liberal Democrat activist, took offence at this and subsequently set up an online petition to get Nawaz de-selected and warned that he had "informed other Muslim countries" of Nawaz's actions. Nawaz is Pakistani, and regularly visits his family there. The language used by Shafiq effectively said Nawaz had committed blasphemy, which carries the death sentence in Pakistan.

- Shafiq has subsequently backpedaled and claimed that he would never endorse violence or condone threats towards Nawaz, and he is entitled to his opinion, but so are Muslims who are offended. He then focused his complaint not on the cartoon, but on the "colourful" language Nawaz used against Shafiq and others.

The debate then shifted to national television news, with it appearing on Daily Politics, then subsequently Channel 4 News and more lately Newsnight.

Let's not forget both the BBC and Channel 4 are state-owned. That means that by the measure of the supporters of publicly owned broadcasting, both broadcasters are meant to reflect us all. It is not illegal to produce drawings or cartoons of any religious figure in the UK.

Channel 4 News on 28 January chose to broadcast as its lead item a piece on Mexican organised crime, which included images of the victims of brutal lynchings by the local drugs gang. The item is here, and you can see the images of the hangings from 1.35. It includes 8 corpses, 6 of which are hanging from the neck.

It was warned some viewers might find the images disturbing, and rightly so.

However, later in the bulletin it covered the Mohammed cartoon issue, and censored the Mohammed part of the image above. It has not made it clear why this is so much more offensive than the image of anonymous corpses hanging by the neck in a bulletin broadcast just after 7pm (so at a time when families are likely to be watching). BBC's Newsnight also censored the image on its show the following night.

One claim is that showing the cartoon is "gratuitously offensive", and is unnecessary.

Well it may be to some, but how is such a test applied? Depictions of dead bodies could be seen as being so as well, as are repeat images of "disaster porn". Most recently, footage of people performing the quenelle was shown as part of a story about a footballer performing this arguably anti-semitic gesture. That's gratuitously offensive to many Jews and others who see it as a stylised Nazi salute (in part because the Nazi-sympathising "comedian" Dieudonné M'bala M'bala performs it).

So do publicly owned UK TV channels find showing a gesture offensive to some Jews to be "not gratuitous", but a cartoon image offensive to some Muslims to be "gratuitous" (even if the latter is not designed to offend).

To top it off, the producer of the Jesus and Mo cartoons was on BBC's Newsnight, but with his name, picture and voice all suppressed, out of fear.

Because this is, ladies and gentlemen, about fear.

Islamists - those who want to take Islam and alter laws and politics to follow it, create fear because all too many of them are prepared to use violence and threats of violence to get their way. It's hardly surprising, because all Islamist states are brutal towards dissidents, apostates and those who are deemed to "offend Islam".

Jews, Christians, atheists and indeed people of any or no-religious faith, and of the multiplicity of secular views, are rarely willing to promote violence to meet their goals in the UK today. There are extremists in the environmentalist and animal rights movements (and far-left "anarchists") who will, but let's leave them for another day. The news media would never censor its own narratives to avoid offending them.

What has happened is a clash - between the values of a free, liberal, open society, and those of an intolerant, aggressive and conservative (pre-enlightenment) one.

It is one that, finally, some on the "liberal" left are starting to realise they have been ill-equipped to respond to, as has been seen by the pathetic limp-wristed snivelling appeasement of the Liberal Democrat party, and the appeasement of the two state owned broadcasters.

I don't believe that Channel 4 or Newsnight have decided that it would be gratuitous to show the cartoon that is at the heart of the context of the story.

It is fear.

Fear that either network will be accused of provocation, accused of insulting "Islam" (as if it is a monolithic entity with some leadership and single source of guidance like Catholicism) or Muslims, as if there is a right to not be offended.

Or it is fear of reprisals. Of violence or threats of violence.

That isn't a reason to censor content, it is a reason to publish it.

For if British publicly owned broadcasters do not believe they can show a fairly low resolution drawing, because some viewers find it offensive and a small number of them will use violence to express their point of view, then it is capitulation by the state, to those who would sanitise, limit and constrain our free speech.

A week or so ago there was a story about footballer Nicolas Anelka performing the Quenelle, a gesture thought by some as being neo-Nazi in intention, and used to express anti-semitism. Censorship of the gesture was out of the question. Is it because Jews don't threaten to do violence to those who perform it?

It is incumbent upon all of us, who believe in freedom of speech, to demand that this cowardly double-standard cease, and not on the side of sanitising public discourse.

Not because we want to antagonise those who are offended, but because effective public discourse about an issue of freedom of speech is compromised, by submitting to those who seek to suppress that speech.

It is, by proxy, the state taking sides.

It is perfectly honourable to show the image, to even apologise that it may cause offence to some viewers in advance, and to justify doing so because the story is about that.

It is to cowardly submit to those who find offence to do otherwise, and to invite justifiable calls of hypocrisy when broadcasting anything that offends people of other beliefs.

The UK is not a theocracy. It is, meant to be, an open, liberal society where free speech is cherished, and there is not a legal right to be protected from offence.

Unfortunately, the law does not consistently uphold this, and unfortunately the UK's two state broadcasters are now parties to cowardice in public discourse, to taking the line that offending others is a reason to censor elements of a story.

In many countries broadcasters don't face official censorship, but unofficially censor themselves because they fear reprisals from the state or the state's proxies. Venezuela, Argentina, Malaysia and other countries have broadcasters that capitulate to fear.

The people of Britain should not tolerate their state owned broadcasters capitulating to the fear of threats from those who seek to undermine our freedoms.

The only way to do so is for those who love freedom, libertarian, liberals, conservatives and indeed anyone for whom free speech is truly precious to say no.

For those who are offended, so what? You have no right to not be offended. Broadcasters are not seeking to offend you. If you don't like it, boycott the programme or the channel.

As for the Liberal Democrats? The party has lost any residual moral authority to use the word "Liberal" by capitulating to debate about this issue. If you can't be categorically clear that threatening another member is unacceptable, then you're worthless to freedom and free speech.

Then again, who is really surprised?

No. You didn't pay into the "state pension", it's a fraud

2013-05-07T11:54:00.002+01:00

One of the most cruel and callous lies of the pension system in the UK is that it involves people paying all their lives "into a system" that they get "paid back" from.

This myth has been created and perpetuated by politicians, and is sustained by the lie that is "national insurance". It isn't insurance. Any private company that offered a voluntary scheme that resembled "national insurance" would face legal proceedings and its directors would be convicted of fraud. I have heard it once described as a PONZI scheme, which is what is resembles.

The problem lies in several dimensions.

Taxpayer funded old age pensions originally were established to address the poverty of the elderly, back in the days when life expectancy was in its mid 60s. The issue simply being that when people were too old or frail to work (during an age when most work was physical) there was a lot of support for providing for the elderly poor. This translated eventually into a basic universal pension to avoid poverty, but not much else.

What came beyond that was the idea that people could have more, and that it could be contributory. "You get what you pay in" sounds like a fundamentally fair principle. So came "national insurance", essentially a tax that would be a contribution through your life that would reflect in a higher pension once you retire.

Except that it was an unintended fraud.

Unlike individual pension schemes, where there are accounts kept, where the money is invested for a return that will be reflected in the final pension amount, national insurance contributions were treated as taxes.

The state spent the lot. It saved nothing and invested nothing.

The intention was that, in the long run, national insurance would "self-fund" as the money coming in from working people would be enough to pay the pensions of the retired. This isn't contributory, but an inter-generational transfer. Existing taxpayers pay for the next generation, which creates several problems and an overall unfairness and unsustainability that needs to be tackled.

The obvious problem is that life expectancy is soaring, and birth rates are in decline on average. The numbers who are working relative to the retired are in free fall because people are living longer, and having smaller families. Short of rather distasteful neo-fascist calls for people to breed more, it simply doesn't add up and it is grossly unfair to claim that it should be made to. The ultimate result of this situation is that those in work need to be taxed more highly to pay pensions of the currently retired than the retired had to pay when they were in work.

The secondary problem is that the system does not generate savings and consequent income and wealth that can be inherited and contribute to the overall net savings in the economy.

Because it is dependent entirely on current taxpayers being willing to pay for the benefits of past taxpayers (or non-taxpayers, as there isn't a huge variability in the state pension based on taxpayer contribution), it doesn't mean that those who have paid taxes in the expectation of a future pension have any rights to anything at all.

There is no personal account. If you die before pension age, there is no asset that can be passed onto your spouse or your children or estate more generally. This effectively means that those who die before they retire could be said to be "ripped off", as they can't partake from the unconsented "deal". Similarly those who spend most of their lives on benefits, paying no net income tax, receive a pension nevertheless. You don't need to "pay into" the fictional system to get money out of it.

As there are no savings, then the money paid does not go into investments per se, whether they be bank deposits or shares or equities. The money paid in national insurance does not contribute to wealth generation, it literally is a transfer to existing pensioners. It is spent on consumption by them. Given the UK has a low net savings rate, there are major benefits that can arise from establish pension funds that can own shares in various businesses, bonds, equities, property and the like. They can provide capital for investment and business growth. This forms a personal asset base that ultimately can be used to provide an income in retirement, and an asset to pass onto the next generation, supporting education, housing and business development further. At the moment, it simply transfers taxes from one generation to the next.

The system as it stands maintains a myth of contribution and getting "payback" from a system that involves none of that. Who reasonably can claim they "paid for" a winter fuel allowance that didn't exist 20 years ago?

The current system is fiscally bankrupt, but also morally bankrupt. It has taken the taxes from tens of millions of people, in the form of "national insurance contributions" on the promise of providing an adequate retirement income, but it took the money and spent it on existing pensioners, on the NHS, on welfare for others, on defence etc. It didn't even replicate what New Zealand now does, which is to take a proportion of income tax and invest it into a national sovereign wealth fund, the income from which is to support paying pensions.

Moreover, it has generated a massive informal lobby group of current pensioners, ever rotating and growing in size, who all demand their share of a system that they think they paid into. The Blair Government bribed them with free bus passes, TV licences and winter fuel allowance, making them all universal because it sustained the "contributory" fraud. The current government bribes them with rises that are the highest of three indices, in other words pensioners now are getting better pay rises than the people actually paying for their pensions.

How can this last?

The current system is unsustainable and unfair. It needs to be shifted towards a contributory system for all, so people have personal retirement accounts they draw upon in their old age. Yes a few wont contribute enough, so they effectively receive the "welfare" component, but most will save more than enough, the few who die before retirement will have provided for their spouse and family as the pension becomes a life insurance policy.

Such a system works in several countries, notably Chile and to a lesser extent Australia. It is the ultimate in democratic savings and welfare, because it personalises the contributions, develops enormous pension funds (with a range of choices available) and it personalises the benefits. Everyone knows they literally get what they pay for. Finally it raises the national savings rate enormously.

There are painless ways to make that transition, it is time some politicians had the courage to admit that this is a problem and that it needs to be reformed.

UKIP could do so much good, but needs to professionalise properly

2013-04-28T22:04:00.001+01:00

There is a good reason for UKIP existing in UK politics. Its original raison d'etre, to support UK withdrawal from the EU, is a position that was ridiculed for so long by the three major parties. Indeed, it was long thought that the Conservative Party was denying itself electoral victory by opposing the Euro and having a strong Eurosceptic wing to it.

Those days are long gone, and given EU attempts to expand regulation across business, spending on rent-seeking industries and its persistently unaudited accounts, there are sound reasons to promote leaving the EU on economic liberal grounds, and retention of sovereignty.

So there is a space for a party that seeks to leave the EU.

UKIP's views on immigration, which are decidedly not libertarian, are still views that no major party has been good at taking on. Support for a points based immigration system, that means migrants are clearly net contributors, is not racist or nationalistic, but likely to be acceptable to many who reject immigration for more unsavoury reasons (i.e. don't like foreigners, especially ones who work harder than me or for less money). Similarly, opposition to an absolute open door for migration from across the EU does have a sound basis in terms of managing the obvious claims to the welfare state, and being able to exclude convicted serious criminals.

Beyond that, the real potential for UKIP is to be the party to keep the Conservatives honest to certain key principles. Like less regulation rather than more. Like believing in not only fiscal responsibility, but in reducing public debt and the size of the state. Like promoting a simpler tax system, with lower rates. Like encouraging competition and choice in public services, and confining the welfare state to relieving poverty as a safety net, not providing support to people on middle incomes.

However, to do that UKIP needs three major internal steps to transform itself. These have become apparent in recent weeks with the dramatic growth in candidate numbers, and the symptoms of a party that has grown from a small bunch of enthusiasts to a large bunch of amateurs.

It has parallels to what happened to the BNP, which has had very brief bursts of popularity, but has long been so toxic, rightfully so, that is only attracted people who either wanted to join but retain a low profile, or those for whom BNP participation wouldn't ruin their employment or business prospects. That's because they weren't that good in the first place.

UKIP can be different. It does explicitly ban BNP, NF and EDL members from joining, but does so on an honour basis. However, it has a lot of people who have joined with little experience of politics and has developed an ad hoc approach to policy. It has a window of opportunity to change this. Criticism leading up to the county council elections will do little harm, but UKIP ought to be aiming to come first next year in the European elections, and do well in the larger scale local elections. To do this, it needs to ensure it harnesses what is good and negates what is bad:

1. Professionalise: That means press releases and statements are carefully managed and prepared. There needs to be consistency in what MEPs and Councillors say on major policy issues, and for publicity measures to be well timed and targeted. A recent policy release to scrap tolls (besides being misguided for several reasons) was totally swamped by being released on the same day as the Leveson agreement was being hammered out. A professional party publicity machine knows when to get media attention, knows how to do so and to ensure that the wider party participates.

2. Manage candidates: As delightful as it is to have many people wanting to be candidates, it is simply pathetic to complain that other parties and media can easily find when candidates have expressed views that are racist, anti-semitic or simply lunatic (keeping fit prevents homosexuality). It shouldn't be hard for someone to be employed spending an hour checking people's history, but more than that is needed. When there is no contest for candidacy, people only need vetting for an unsavoury past (including CRB checks - yes, seriously), but where there is a contest then there needs to be an effort to get candidates who can debate on the spot, who can respond to media queries and not get caught out (and not have lunatic conspiracy theory, bigoted or views that are blatantly contrary to party policy and principles).

3. Develop policies with common themes: As a former policy wonk, it would be very easy for me to write a massive suite of policies, but there need not be a lot, or be too complex. However, they do need to have some figures behind them. What's needed? Besides EU membership and immigration...

- Economic (including monetary, fiscal, tax and regulatory);

- Welfare;

- Pensions;

- Health;

- Education;

- Housing;

- Defence;

- Local government;

- Law and Order.

Others are "nice to have", but less important and not policies that most voters choose parties on. All of these need to demonstrate something different, something that promotes more individual responsibility, that rewards entrepreneurship and saving, not fecklessness and rent seeking. They need to support property rights, choice and less government interference, except for core state functions like defence and law and order. It should also reject new taxes and regulations for environmental goals that do not apply to the UK's competitors.

However, most of all it needs to be costed and not just consist of promises to spend more money and cut taxes. It needs to make it clear that EU withdrawal is not enough to save money. You can't abolish tuition fees. You can't maintain the welfare state as it stands. You oppose corporatism, big state projects and the creation of laws and regulatory frameworks that suit incumbents or the bureaucratic/political classes.

UKIP should be the party of individual responsibility, less government and independence over your own life, own business and own property. All of that is alien to Labour and the Liberal Democrats, although not many of their voters and it was the heart of the Conservatives.

4. Develop party disciplinary procedures: Establish formal spokespersons who are fully briefed on agreed policies. Make sure candidates have policy information and are expected to have a summary understanding of key policies. Allow candidates to have some range of views on policy, but not to openly oppose major policies. However, have a disciplinary committee for candidates who express bigoted views. You know them when you see them. They will be egregiously racist, sexist, homophobic, conspiracy theory laden or anti-semitic. Holocaust deniers, offensive stereotypers and the like ought to be purged. No, it's not about being politically correct, it is about treating everyone as an individual, judging behaviour not backgrounds.

Why is this important? Because you can't be a protest party forever. You will find yourself marginalised more and more for ever crackpot lunatic you have that appears as a candidate. You can't be seen as a vehicle for people who think the colour of skin, ethnicity, genitalia and preferred legal sexual partners of people are a reason in themselves for the state to treat people differently. More importantly, you need to be seen as a party that has solutions and will do politics differently, with a different philosophy.

Do all this, and you will be seen as serious, with a life that goes beyond Nigel Farage, and beyond EU scepticism. Avoid it, and you'll be fly by nighters, who lose thousands of interested supporters and members because they are not racist, sexist or interested in crackpot lunacy, or a party that simply offers contradictory rhetoric, and a vehicle for unsavoury, unhinged, stupid or incompetent people to get elected.

Be as mad as you like about the establishment. I'm angry too, I don't like the current government very much, and I despise the politics of Labour and the Liberal Democrats, but that's just not enough.

Substance is needed, and you need to pay for it.

Scrap planning laws and urban growth boundaries, and go back to property rights

2013-04-23T22:23:00.000+01:00

Give some credit to Nick Boles, he's actually making an effort to confront part of the problem with housing - the socialist central planning focused planning laws that make just about any alteration to a property a matter, not for the property owner, but for "society".

That means the immediate neighbours, the near neighbours, the people down the road, the local residents' association, the local environmental group, maybe a competing business, a charity and of course, the council itself.

Your property isn't yours, and it isn't about protecting the property rights of others, it is simply about gaining the consent of those whose property it isn't. In other words, it is communitarianism.

So I applaud the attempts to simplify planning laws, to make it easier for property owners to build on their own land, and to change the use of properties from commercial to residential purposes.

However, it isn't enough. The fundamental philosophy behind the planning system is rooted in 1940s style socialism - the belief that property is communal, not private.

This needs to be scrapped and replaced with a new approach, based entirely on private property rights.

The starting point should be that you can do as you wish with your own land and buildings, with the first limit being not acting to infringe upon the same rights of others. You can't build to overhang the property of another, or dig under the property of another.

Following that are limits on acting to trespass on the property of another through a discharge, such as liquids, gases including smoke, and also noise. There would be reasonable limits on these (non-toxic and non-nuisance gases, and noise that does not affect reasonable enjoyment of the property).

Finally, there would be the granting of property rights to cover matters such as air rights, sight lines and the like, and to recognise already confirmed planning approvals. In other words converting existing permissions and some restrictions which are critical to the value of the property.

What would this mean? You could build an extension to your house, but probably not one several stories high that blocks out all sun from your neighbour. You could paint your house a different colour. More importantly, you could run a business from there, as long as noise and emissions did not unreasonably interfere with your neighbours.

If you had an empty section, you could build a home on it, as long as you respected the property rights of your neighbours (including sight lines if relevant), paid for all of the utility connections yourself and did not put your neighbours' properties at unreasonable risk of harm (e.g. fire).

You wouldn't need to meet environmental standards, although you may choose to do so. You wouldn't need to build "affordable" housing. You simply wouldn't have to meet any collective goals imposed by local planners. You could just build. There remains an issue for "listed buildings" of course, and those who have bought them have done so effectively with a restriction on property rights. That should be able to be appealed or "bought out" at a certain price, but that should one of the issues debated. Along with that should be a far tighter process for imposing heritage listings upon properties at all - those who wish to do so should buy a property right in such properties and hold them, paying the owner for them once. It is unacceptable that some committee should just take away property rights "for the greater good".

A similar issue arises with compulsory acquisitions, which should be done away with. The appropriate way to deal with buying property you want for private or public purposes, is price.

Simply transforming property rights would make a huge difference to unlocking existing land for building, and existing properties for conversions, expansion and development. Yes it would mean farmland could be converted to housing. No, we wouldn't starve, as it would really only be around the periphery of London and a few other cities that there might be much such development.

Yes, it would result in some wacky architecture that would upset some. So what. Yes, it would result in some cheap buildings being built, or some ugly ones, but then so what? Someone paid for that. If you didn't want it there, maybe you should have bought it?

However, real reform has to go further. Urban growth boundaries have to be abolished. The current boundaries, in the form of the green belt land, needs to be opened up for development. In London, halving the green belt land would double, yes double the land available for housing in the metropolitan region. Consider what that would do for affordable housing! Consider what it would do for overcrowding and for enabling more to have larger, quieter, more comfortable homes.

Yet to confront this one needs to take on the environmental lobby and say no to the current ideology - called "new urbanism", "intensification" and the like. That philosophy says people should live in higher density housing to reduce energy costs and to encourage use of public transport. In essentially, people should sacrifice space and quiet for the goals of central planners.

This approach has inflated housing costs as demand never meets supply, and has produced a privileged property owning class based on generations. As those who were able to afford a home in the 1960s and 1970s now have properties worth many multiples of the inflation adjusted price of their original purchase, all because demand exceeds supply.

Some will claim the countryside will get built over, but this is nonsense. According to the BBC, only 2.3% of England is built on. It would be extraordinary to expect that to even double, but then even if it did so what? More people would have affordable homes, affordable because of the market, not subsidies from taxpayers. More would have additional rooms, more space, more quiet and a higher standard of living as a result.

It's time to scrap the planning laws of the 1940s in their entirety and start again, based on private property rights. Establish a new system whereby all property owners know, with their titles, what they can build and change, and then what would be left of planning law would be to arbitrate disputes over property rights, and gaining agreement to use the property of others.

While we are at it, surrender half of the green belt, either by sale or by offering proportionate amounts to adjoining land owners (or both), and let the market resolve the housing crisis, by setting some land free. Of course this should be done judiciously, so that areas that remain are those containing endangered species and sensitive ecosystems, but let's not preserve open space for the sake of it.

There are strong vested interests opposed to this, not least people with existing homes seeking to preserve their inflated values, and environmentalists who are willing to sacrifice people's living space for trees.

My recent backbencher articles

2013-04-23T19:50:00.000+01:00

Recently I've been penning short pieces for the website The Backbencher, here are the last two:

The NHS is no envy of the world

Voluntaryism: We need to talk about welfare

What's wrong with much of the UK after Thatcher's legacy?

2013-04-09T16:00:00.000+01:00

Few can be surprised at the sight of handfuls of people cheering Thatcher's death, although the ones seen in Glasgow yesterday must have been remarkably political active in their nappies, as virtually all were in their 20s. Just goes to show how education is so powerful in transmitting not just knowledge, but ideology.

Journalists have been seeking out Thatcher haters, in Liverpool (where half of those broadcast by the BBC liked her), Durham, Glasgow and other towns where Thatcher's government finally pulled the plug of taxpayer subsidies and protectionism on the sunset heavy industries of coal, steel, shipbuilding, car assembly and the like. Industries where the militant Marxist-Leninist trade union movement had fought any redundancies, any liberalisation of labour practices (consider industries where multiple unions protected individual parts of the production line, none letting any workers combine processes even if technology made it possible) and stubbornly refused to allow any form of industrial democracy, in the form of secret ballots. Preferring the rule of the mob and the bullying of any dissenters, their ever increasing demands for higher pay without higher productivity gutted these industries. They could no longer sell their products competitively, when faced with more efficiently produced imports from Europe and elsewhere, and so needed other taxpayers to prop up their sunset industries. It was 30% more expensive to buy British coal than import coal

For whilst Labour politicians talked of the tripartite union-business-government cozy deals that they witnessed in some countries in western Europe, the unions were more interested in the philosophy being applied in eastern Europe.

So the subsidies ended, businesses that could never be internationally competitive, and couldn't even compete on domestic markets, closed, and whole towns lost their major employer.

It's easy to argue that maybe more could have been done for these towns and cities, indeed there have been more than a couple of attempts at "regeneration" for some. "Regeneration" meaning taking taxpayers money to tidy up public spaces, refurbish old buildings, maybe put in some new road or other transport facility, and hoping some new businesses arrive. However, more often than not they didn't. The legacy has been a generation or two of towns with declining populations, as those with aspiration leave, and others remain - their children raised on legends and teachers spreading their bile that Thatcher "destroyed" their communities.

What did they do to rebuild them?

It's been 30 or so years since the ending of industries that Phelan described rightfully as being on their knees already. Thatcher didn't destroy the industries out of hatred, indeed there were offers of redundancy that Arthur Scargill rejected. You see Arthur Scargill, who went on to form his own Socialist Labour Party, was not on the side of liberal democracy. He was, and still is a communist. He opposed the Solidarity trade union in Poland, and he would have been saddened by the collapse of the Marxism-Leninist authoritarian regimes across eastern Europe.

For they had all endured decades of the policies he embraced, of state owned industries, manufacturing according to centrally planned targets and only making what it was thought people needed, and ensuring full employment in the process.

Yet after all those regimes collapsed, they lost virtually all of their heavy industries. Industries largely to produce 1950s grade machinery, weapons, railway equipment, ships and shoddy consumer goods were almost all unsalvageable. Consider the worst examples, like Romania, which had been rendered bankrupt by Nicolae Ceausescu's megalomania, and his Corbusier style rebuilding of downtown Bucharest at vast expense, as he tried to replicate Kim Il Sung's personality cult.

It is difficult to exaggerate about the complete destruction of industries and jobs seen in east Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and indeed the increasingly bankrupt former Yugoslavia and Albania. With few exceptions, such as Skoda, the brands and the state owned businesses of eastern Europe were decimated, with millions made unemployed in a snap, and the euphoria which came from real freedom - freedom of speech and freedom of movement, was tempered as many faced having their livelihoods ended.

West Germany bailed out east Germany by completely reconstructing its infrastructure, the utilities, building roads, railways and pouring a vast fortune into saving the third of Germany that had spent 55 years under totalitarianism. The rest did have development loans, but their main approach was to reform, from scratch. They abolished almost all monopolies, created brand new legal frameworks for property rights, contracts, commercial law, and shrank the state sector dramatically. Most established low flat taxes, simple ones that were often based on the Laffer curve, maximising revenue, by minimising evasion and maximising growth. They transformed. After twenty years, the per capita GDP of much of eastern Europe has caught up with the bottom end of western Europe. The Czech Republic has GDP per capita (PPP) higher than Greece or Portugal, with Slovakia, Estonia and Poland akin to that of Portugal. Most of the others are not far behind that.

They had decades of the kind of economics the National Union of Miners supported, and it destroyed them. Their virtually useless industries were then destroyed and they rebuilt industries and businesses from scratch, with a positive attitude, a first class work ethic and none of the dependency culture, blaming and moaning that is characteristic of much of post-industrial Britain.

For Poles, Czechs, Hungarians could all have blamed the USSR, later Russia, for destroying them. Had Stalin not decided the end of World War 2 was a chance to drape half of Europe with his soulless dark totalitarianism, then they would all have economies at the same level as much of western Europe. They could have harboured intergenerational hatred of Russians, they could even have blamed Gorbachev for coming along, and setting them free and destroying their safe jobs. Yet they don't. Was it because the alternative was not to sit around on welfare watching TV and going to the pub to moan about politics, but to have nothing?

Today you'll find plenty in eastern Europe who acknowledge that under socialism, life was safe, but grim, oppressive, tedious and going nowhere. Few are prepared to hark back to those times, fewer blame Gorbachev or other politicians at the time for freeing them.

Yet in Liverpool , Glasgow, Durham, Sheffield so many harbour venal resentment, and so many blame the current stagnation and relative decline of those cities on Thatcher. None think that it was ever their responsibility to rebuilt their economies, to start up new businesses, to be entrepreneurial.

What a contrast.

From the late 1940s to 1989, entrepreneurship was illegal in eastern Europe. With the exception of a few minor craft businesses and some retail outlets, virtually all business was state owned. Nobody could ever think of setting up a new business anywhere at all, indeed suggesting such a thing would put you at risk of surveillance by the secret police. In the less oppressive states you'd get a warning that it isn't a good idea, in more oppressive ones (like Romania led by Nicolae Ceausescu, knighted under a Labour government in 1978) you'd get taken away, tortured in prison and find life a lot more difficult from then. Entrepreneurship was opposed and considered evil. Yet now it flourishes.

Never in Britain was it remotely as oppressive as it was in eastern Europe, but a culture of entrepreneurship seems rather vacant in post-industrial Britain. Instead there is a culture of dependency. As if the men who lost their relatively menial jobs could only ever wait for someone else to employ them, none of them having the inspiration or wherewithal to employ themselves. The government didn't impose that, the community did.

It is a self perpetuating cycle though. That culture depresses and oppresses. Those who do have a sense of individual spirit to get somewhere simply leave, they move to one of the bigger cities, inevitably south and often to London. They add to the GDP of the cities that welcome such attitudes, and take that little bit away from those that reject them

In retrospect, it is hard to see what could have been done to prevent that. Certainly Thatcher did relatively little to wean education out of the hands of the Marxist teaching unions, and promote diversity in education which may have helped. It may also have helped to set up vast areas as true enterprise zones, completely absent of almost all taxation, with planning laws reduced to private property rights only, giving them a kick start by exposing them to true free market capitalism. However, you can lead a horse to water and all that.

It's a damning legacy of the British left that it maintains the rhetoric against Thatcher and maintaining the scapegoat of her reforms as the reason why a whole generation in certain areas have done nothing with their lives. Much of Europe turned around economies damaged far more thoroughly by socialism and the collapse of socialist industries than the north of the UK or Scotland.

The millstone of past glorious heavy industries needs to be removed from the "collective consciousness" (for that is what it is promoted as) of much of the East Midlands, the North, Scotland and Wales.

You've not been that hard done by, relatively speaking, to much of the world. Stop blaming those who have long past from power and start taking responsibility for your own lives.

You don't see Poles, Czechs, Latvians, Slovaks and Romanians moaning and whinging endlessly about how hard done by they were by Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev on one hand, and by the politicians they elected that destroyed their bankrupt economic "bases" on the other.

Can't those in the North of the UK move on?

Thatcher stopped the rot

2013-04-08T21:53:00.000+01:00

She was no libertarian.

Yet she did much to open up the economy.

She took on the Marxist trade unions, and the Soviet bloc.

She made a few mistakes, but on balance she turned Britain around and pointed it in the right direction.

Labour's attack on payday loan companies ignores the underlying culture of irresponsibility

2013-04-08T12:46:00.002+01:00

As the Labour Party strives to become popular, and be seen as new, dynamic and able to "think differently", it shows itself to be anything but that.

The announcement that it wants to increase the power of local authorities to ban a type of business that it doesn't like just shows Labour has really only got one answer to everything - more statism. It discourages individual responsibility, and I don't just mean by those whose behaviour is self-destructive, but by those wanting to change their behaviour. Passing laws to stop people harming themselves or selling goods and services to a few people who do so, does not promote better behaviour. It's the uncivilised tool of the big brother bully saying "do as I say or else" rather than convincing people to change on the merits of your argument.

The BBC reports that Ed Miliband wants councils to be able to ban bookmakers, payday loan shops and pawnbrokers, motivated no doubt by the desire to want to reduce gambling, borrowing and sales of assets by the poor.

Yet there is little doubt that plenty of people on low incomes waste their money gambling and foolishly take out payday loans (although I am far from convinced that pawnbrokers are necessarily thriving on poor decisions, except of course offering thieves a chance to cash in their gains). Given the increasingly prevalence of online gambling and online and mobile phone based payday loan companies, shutting down the retail fronts is hardly going to do much to limit access, but it will cost jobs.

It thinks that by reducing the supply and availability of such businesses, it will reduce demand and save people, but it will do little to do any of that. Indeed it smacks of middle class champagne socialist distaste for such shops in the local high street, and the people who go into them. You can't really imagine anyone on the Labour front bench going to any of them.

Which is what Labour means when it says when "people" say "no, enough is enough", he actually means middle class do-gooders. Because if people, generally, didn't want those businesses, they wouldn't exist, they wouldn't be viable. It's the flipside to HS2, because people aren't actually willing to pay for it, but politicians say people want it.

People go to bookmakers for recreation, and yes often with a misguided sense of hope that it might change their fortunes (albeit in most cases relatively modestly). The do-gooders who want to shut down those businesses could take responsibility for promoting their point of view, by buying advertising time explaining the poor odds of winning and the alternative of saving (although the QE mainstream means that saving in a bank account is a losing battle with inflation). They could actually take the initiative instead of using force to shut down shops that people evidently want to patronise (which also employ people). Taking responsibility for promoting responsibility would be a positive move, but not one that Labour even recognises. It is addicted to using force.

Payday loan companies exist for a reason. Banks wont loan to the people who take out these loans, because they are a bad risk (and there is a broad consensus that the state backed banking system should be highly risk averse). This is something endorsed by the Labour Party. It doesn't want banks lending to people who can't pay the loans back. So now it wants to stop those who risk their own money lending to such people, for potentially high returns. The implication is that nobody should take out payday loans. However, people with few alternatives do so for a range of reasons. Of course those who do so to fund whimsical consumption (like a night out, or a holiday) are just plain stupid. They eventually will reap the consequences of their behaviour, and learn from that. However, some take up such loans for other purposes, such as paying for emergencies like car repairs (which in some cases means being able to get to work or not), or to replace an appliance or pay the excess on an insurance claim. Restricting such loans would harm those people, and drive some into the real loan shark industry of informal loans from gangsters willing to use violence to extract their repayment. That's the real risk of limiting pay day loans.

However, once again, the responsible approach would be to counter-advertise. Why don't those who oppose pay day loans produce ads that explain the consequences of borrowing for consumption? If you care so much for those who get harmed from such loans, then reach them directly. In fact, why not set up your own pay day loan company offering loans at far lower interest rates, to help out people. Of course the latter wont happen because anyone doing that would be flooded with applications and it would cost a lot to work through them to find the cases that were thought to be "justified". So most people would simply revert to the high interest pay day loan companies.

The bigger problem across all of this is the culture of irresponsibility. This is promoted by a state, and a political culture that implies that it will "save you from yourself" and ban things that tempt you to doing the "wrong thing". The only way to change that is to promote the opposite, and for the state to stop saving people from themselves.

I think, on balance, that most people would be better off not taking pay day loans, or gambling or pawning goods for far less than their value. I also know that I actually don't know any better about anyone's individual circumstances, and so I shouldn't be forcing others around, including those doing business with them legitimately, without fraud.

Moreover, if you really do want to help the poor, the first steps ought to be reducing the tax burden upon them (raising the income tax free threshold to the minimum wage, resisting increases in retail taxation) and getting rid of measures that increase the cost of living and reduce employment (e.g. green levies on energy, restrictions on shop trading hours and other measures that reduce employment, opposing further QE and supporting freer trade).

The next step is far more pervasive, and that is to change the culture of entitlement and short term whim worshipping that has been prevalent for several decades. That means transforming the welfare state into a system of personal catastrophe insurance, scrapping benefits that encourage irresponsibility and opening up the education system beyond those who teach the culture of statism.

It's about returning to the poor and needy a sense of esteem, of belief that they can transform their lives, and that the answer is not to expect the faceless, amoral state to give it to them, but for it to get out of the way.

All Labour is selling the poor is a patronising nanny state, that shuts down the things they like, keeps paying them to do nothing and rewarding them for breeding more, and telling them the reason they are poor is because they are big bad businesses out there ready to exploit them, and are not hiring them or paying them enough. It's a malignant attack on personal responsibility and aspiration that keeps people addicted to the state, and it nobody any good except the politicians whose careers are built on pandering to it.

The economic and moral vacuum of Ed Miliband's politics

2013-03-23T23:19:00.000+00:00

According to today’s interview in The Times, Ed Miliband probably thinks he’s had a good week. After all, he converted the leader of the Liberal Democrats to press regulation and as a result got David Cameron to surrender as well. Then it became abundantly clear from the Budget that George Osborne’s approach isn’t delivering economic growth or fiscal discipline that remotely represents what he has said. This was cue for Ed Miliband’s “We told you so” barely concealed glee on the economy, that being the now clichéd “Tories cut too far too fast”, which is the single dominant message from Labour since the election – that the solution to a budget deficit is to oppose all spending cuts. Plain politically driven Opposition, as vapid as ever.

Today Ed Miliband spoke at the annual Labour Party conference recycling the same old message, the claim that what has been called austerity, has strangled the economy. Meanwhile, he has churned out the same so-called answers, that higher taxes on those on highest incomes and taxes on wealth, offset by a cut in tax on consumption (which would be many times greater in reduced revenue than the tax increases), will deliver the sort of boost needed. The view that borrowing more for the state to build more state housing will reduce the deficit. Labour wants more people living in homes owned by the state. If that was the answer to prosperity, then the former Soviet bloc would have thrived. If massive capital spending saved economies, Japan would be booming, as the country is awash with bridges, roads, airports and railway lines that are grossly underutilised. Yet Labour isn't promising to do anything of that either, except of course the cross-party totem of HS2.

It wouldn’t be so bad if there wasn’t so much at stake, but there is.

Public debt has gone up 38% since the coalition was elected and will be double that level by 2018. The coalition is essentially doing the bare minimum to avoid spooking the bond markets, assisted considerably by the money printing, euphemistically called QE, that is in part, monetising UK public debt, at a cost of a 3% haircut in people’s savings year on year (or 9% if you count the depreciation of the pound relative to the US$). Yes, don’t be shocked by Cyprus, for QE is doing the same, by stealth to bank deposits, and no major party opposes it.

The private sector is sitting on piles of cash as security, and because of a lack of confidence in future growth. Cash that, when eventually it is spent, will unlock inflation and the inevitable monetary policy conundrum of whether to choke off the inflationary recovery with higher interest rates. However, wilful blindness to this is not confined to Miliband.

However, his vision is one where the state restarts the economy by spending more so people spend more on consumption, by spending more on the commercially unsustainable “Green economy”. He happily embraces a UK economy where the state sucks up 50% of GDP, and talks of “supporting” families, businesses and every other group where he thinks there are swing voters. He preaches state dependence, state welfare and state corporatism.

Ed Miliband offers absolutely nothing to change that, dismissing demands for what “he would cut” by saying “we don’t know what things will be like in 2015”. Well Ed, we do. At best, there will be a budget deficit of £100 billion to add to the public debt by then. We know the UK now has one of the worst budget deficits in the Western world. Ed might want to evade that fact, or he might think he can tax 1% of the population to fix it, but he can’t and that wont. He claims that if you “get people back to work” that will do it, but even if ALL jobseekers’ allowance and income top ups for the unemployed were eliminated, it would only save £13 billion a year. It’s exacerbated by his war on large businesses, his attack on energy companies, which charge customers more in green levies imposed by government than they charge to make a profit and which operate the most competitive energy market in Europe. Miliband ought to know, since the current system is the one he developed as Secretary of State for Energy. However, like his demand for another tax on the banking sector, it just shows his Marxist anti-big business credentials, with no regards at all for whether the taxes and regulations he wants will benefit the general public. At a time when there are concerns over a lack of new electricity generation capacity, his bashing of energy companies would accelerate an age of shortages.

Miliband economics don’t add up.

The moral vacuum is the class warfare that has infected, yes infected, the Labour rhetoric. Labour’s big message is that the Conservatives are the party of the rich, governing for the rich. It is pure Marxism from past generations, as it is just absurd to think that most people who are wealthy regard the state as a way to make more money. The message is “the Conservatives say they are trying to fix the economy, but they give tax cuts to their friends and deliberately target the poor to cut the deficit”. Yet conversely, Labour has opposed every attempt to eliminate welfare for the wealthy, including capping the total welfare anyone can receive to the average wage, and capping child benefit. Surely if the Conservatives wanted to help the rich, they would universalise benefits?

Yet the moral abyss between Ed Miliband and reality is clearest here, and it is in the masterful use of Gramscian techniques of manipulation of language and discourse. It is riddled with shameless lies, but you know them already:

- “Tax cut for millionaires” to describe a drop in the tax rate for those earning over £150k;

- “Bedroom tax” to describe the cut in housing benefit for individuals, couples or families in properties with spare bedrooms;

- “Granny tax” to describe a one-year freeze in the tax free allowance for pensioners (instead of inflation adjusting it);

- “swingeing cuts” to describe total cuts of just over 1% in two years in real terms.

Yet none of that is quite so egregious as the denial of the fiscal bomb created by the previous Labour government. It was acknowledged by Alastair Darling, which was why Gordon Brown tried to fire him. It could be seen in public sector wage increases faster than that in the private sector, in the spread of middle class and universal welfare benefits. Had Labour won, it would have had to cut spending and raise taxes, now it is carefully spinning the lie that if it wins in 2015, it will have to clear up a mess created by the coalition. Labour wants to claim that it wouldn’t need to cut any spending at all or it would be “nicer” about it. It also has hitched its wagon to a war on taxpayers and tax avoidance, raising the vile vision that anyone obeying the complex and byzantine tax system, is immoral. Ed Miliband even says keeping public sector pay rises to 1% per annum is "reprehensible", presumably he thinks taxpayers working in the private sector should continue to support greater pay rises in public sector workers than they get themselves. Public sector workers will love him, but really how can any politician justify forcing the private sector to pay for public sector workers to get ever greater pay that they themselves get?

Fortunately, a sizeable proportion of the public are not stupid. They know Labour, including Ed and Ed, governed the country for 13 years, running budget deficits for most of that period. The initial lie that deficits were due to the one-off bailouts of banks, is lost now. Labour is relying on its core tribal vote of state sector employees and beneficiaries, and hoping to capture a broader set of middle class voters disappointed at the performance of the economy.

Yet what does it offer them? Envy and disdain for those on higher incomes and demands to tax wealth, as well as income. A war on those minimising their tax bills legally, rather than a war on complex tax rules that benefit tax lawyers more than anyone. More regulation of energy companies, rather than efforts to boost supply. More council houses, and no efforts to ease up the socialist style planning system that places property rights at the mercy of the “people’s committees” in local authorities.

Ed Miliband likes to think he has shaken off the “Red Ed” moniker, but his unwillingness to admit the last government overspent, his unwillingness to propose spending cuts, and his continue class warfare like attacks on “the rich” (a class he belongs to) and big business, are tiresome and not inspiring the middle English voters he needs to win an election. His best hope is that they’ll vote UKIP so he wins by default. The emptiness of his rhetoric and vision deserves more scrutiny. He's a Labour leader for the unions, for public sector workers and beneficiaries. He wants to use the phrase "One Nation Labour" to be a unifier, but he is a divider. His answer to fiscal incontinence is to deny it, and want more tax from those who impose the least burden on taxpayers.

He is in fact a "Two Nation" Marxist - promoting "them" (the rich, excluding he and his comrades of course, as rich and privileged as they are) against "us" (the proletariat).

Old Labour tribalism, and it's the kind that could (and should) cost him an election.

Budget 2013 - not a budget for growth

2013-03-20T23:08:00.000+00:00

It isn't the "omnishambles" of 2012, it isn't radical, but it is a steady programme of slight reductions in spending across non-ringfenced budgets, a few tax cuts, and some tax increases.

So what matters, and what doesn't?

The big picture is that the budget deficit is high, very high. The myth of cuts and austerity should be obvious as spending has not dropped, and not because of a blowout of welfare benefits due to unemployment, as some on the left claim, it is simply because spending cuts have been modest, and are more than offset by real increases in spending on the NHS, overseas aid and schools.

Only an Opposition politician or hardened socialist would think that George Osborne is some great slasher of the state. He's not, he's stemmed the growth of it, but given that there will still be a budget deficit in 2018.

There are 67 individual measures listed in the Budget. I'll only discuss those with implications of more than £100 million a year, which means 24. I'll rate them as being highly positive through to highly negative for economic freedom and a smaller state.

Elimination of contracting out of national insurance (split between employer, employee, public and private sector categories): This is due to the introduction of the "single tier" state pension, and means that because the pension will not depend on contributions for an additional tier, nobody will be able to choose to "opt-out" of paying a portion of national insurance by having a private pension. It is a tax increase, by forcing everyone to contribute to a larger state pension, and reduces the propensity to save for one's own retirement. Worth over £5.2 billion a year in extra tax revenue by 2018. Highly negative.
Inheritance tax threshold freeze: Means inflation effectively widens those eligible to pay inheritance tax. A tax increase based on envy. £170m a year by 2018. Moderately negative.
Social care funding reform: Subsidies for social care to ensure no one pays more than £72k towards social care. Expansion of the welfare state encouraging state dependency. £1b a year extra spending by 2018. Highly negative.
Higher childcare subsidies: 85% of childcare costs to be paid for those eligible for the new Universal Credit. £750m a year extra spending by 2018. Encouraging growth in childcare costs and state dependency. Highly negative
National Insurance £2000 employment allowance: £2,000 allowance for all businesses and charities to offset against National Insurance bills. Effectively a small tax cut for business. £1.725b a year less tax by 2018. Moderately positive
Corporation tax cut to 20%: 1% cut to 21% in 2014 and another 1% cut in 2015. Straight out cut in corporation tax. £865m a year less tax by 2018 Moderately positive
£3 billion capital spending increase per year: Self explanatory, more state spending on "capital". Details to come in June. This could be roads, railways, state housing, hospitals or schools. Whatever it is, it will crowd out the private sector role. It could be money for unproductive capital or it could be for road maintenance (which is high value, low political profile). I'll be generous and say Moderately negative
Stamp Duty Abolition of Schedule 19 charge: Basically removing stamp duty on sales of units in funds, which has effectively encouraged such funds to be domiciled offshore to avoid the tax. This is a positive removal of a punitive tax that is expected to actually generate much more tax revenue through the fund itself, than the stamp duty. Reduces tax by £160m a year by 2018 Moderately positive.
Abolition of Stamp Duty on shares in companies on the Alternative Investment Market and ISDX Growth market: Be better if it was in all shares, but be grateful for small mercies. It is a small additional incentive to invest in high risk new companies. Good. Reduces tax by £175m a year by 2018. Moderately positive.
Industrial strategy: £180m a year in subsidies to businesses. Picking winners with the taxes of everyone. It includes money for the aerospace industry, but other industries will win a bureaucratic beauty contest later this year (including agriculture and automotive sectors). Could have cut corporation tax by another 0.2% for this, for all business. Moderately negative.
Bank levy increase: Up from 0.13% to 0.142% on the assets of UK banks. Pure populist bank bashing that hurts the financial services sector and reduces the propensity of banks to hold assets in the UK. An extra £250m in tax. Moderately negative.
Increased income tax free personal allowance to £10,000: Taking more people on the lowest incomes out of income tax. Good. It also will increase by the CPI in 2016. A cut in tax of £1.2b a year. Highly positive
September fuel duty increase cancelled: Not allowing fuel duty to increase in line with the Brown Government's plans of 1.89p/l. Good, there is no justification for continuous increases in a punitive tax that largely is paid by road users, with no benefit to them. It isn't a tax cut though, it is reversal of a previously planned increase. A cut in forecast revenue of £900m a year by 2018. Moderately positive
Beer duty cut and abolition of beer duty escalator: A cut of £205m a year by 2018. General beer duty cut by 2% with future increases in beer duty at the RPI only. However, wine, spirit and cider taxes to rise by RPI + 2% as previously indicated. Barely moderately positive (and only because the abolition of the beer duty escalator looks like a "saving").
Tax agreements to increase revenues from Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man: Expected to be £170m of more tax revenue from new disclosure arrangements so HMRC gets confidential information from those jurisdictions. Pure grab of tax. Moderately negative
Targeting limited liability partnerships as a tax avoidance instrument: £285m a year in extra tax by 2018, from oppressing businesses using partnerships to reduce tax liability legally. Another tax grab. Moderately negative
Targeting corporate loss buying: Clamping down on companies buying the losses of other companies to reduce tax liability. £190m a year in extra tax by 2018. Moderately negative
1% spending cut for many government departments: It is a one off saving, reducing spending by £2.3b over two years. It doesn't apply to health, schools, local government, HMRC or police budgets. Highly positive although it all gets spent on new capital as mentioned above.
Official development assistance budget cut: This is a funny one. Because the aid budget is meant to target 0.7% of GDP and GDP is not rising as much as is forecast, neither will the aid budget. A saving of £305m a year by 2018, which is actually a reduction in spending growth. Barely moderately positive
Special reserve budget cut: £300m set aside for spending on Defence in Afghanistan is cut from the special reserve budget. A one off reduction. Barely moderately positive

Beyond that there is the housing bribes, the extension to right to buy to a £100k discount for buying ones council home in London isn't expensive, costing only £50m a year. Frankly, getting more homes out of state ownership is a good thing.

"Help to buy" is a subsidy to buy homes. The state will lend anyone up to 20% of the value of a newly built home, and a mortgage guarantee will be provided for those with small deposits. Properties up to £600k can be bought with this subsidy.

The equity loan means if you have a 5% deposit on a new build home, then the state will lend you 20% so you effectively only need a mortgage for 75% of the property value. The loan is interest free for five years, beyond that it will be at 1.75% interest with every subsequent year it increasing by inflation + 1%. That could get expensive.

The mortgage guarantee applies to anyone wanting to buy a home, new or existing.

The effect will be to encourage new builds, but it wont address the supply side issues of planning laws and urban growth boundaries.

The real answer to housing costs is supply, which would be greatly eased by scrapping the 1940s centrally planned philosophy around property replacing it with common law based property rights, and abolishing the misguided policy of intensification which tradeoffs housing space and costs for esoteric targets of emissions.

These measures will raise the price of new build houses, and make a modest difference to supply by incentivising some new build, but it wont address the massive planning and land supply constraints.

In conclusion, this isn't a budget that will do much for growth. It wont harm it, because there are enough mildly positive measures in it, but it wont unleash a flood of entrepreneurship and investment, and it wont tell the world the UK is serious about being friendly towards business and towards the generation of wealth.

It maintains modest savings in spending, for modest tax cuts. It isn't enough either to kickstart the economy, nor, I suspect to save the next general election for the Conservatives.

Budget 2013 - a very modest wishlist

2013-03-20T10:48:00.004+00:00

It wont happen, but it needs to. George Osborne needs a budget that facilitates two goals, and will help deliver a third one if he is lucky. Sadly he is expected to do very little to support both.

Those goals should be:

- Economic growth;

- Balancing the budget.

He has been pursuing a modest programme of spending cuts and freezes (and increase reductions) and tax rises to address the latter, but wont be in balance until 2017, if the economy picks up. Meanwhile it is stagnant, and needs to be set free with measures that don't involve modest pieces of tinkering, or throwing cash at crowding out private investment in housing.

Below is a modest wishlist, modest because it keeps a lot of taxes intact, modest because it keeps a lot of spending intact, and state activities. However, it will reduce the size of the state, it will kick start employment and investment, and it will pave the way for a transformative reduction in the regulatory burden on the economy.

Cut taxes

Corporation tax rates have been dropping incrementally, but it is time to make them the most competitive in Europe. Lower Corporation Tax to 10% as of 1 April. That will send a loud and clear message that Britain is open for business, it will slash the need to pursue the ill-motivated concern towards tax avoidance. Treasury will wring its hands over the deficit, but the growth in business activity will erode the difference in a couple of years, and the effect on employment and investment will be dramatic.

Freeze business rates for the rest of the life of this Parliament. Perpetual increases in this tax affect business and are particularly hurting the retail sector.

Abolish the punitive 45p tax rate, accelerate the lift in the income tax free threshold to the minimum wage and inflation adjust all income tax thresholds The Government will continue to get flack from Labour from "cutting taxes for millionaires" which is a lie, but eliminating this punitive income tax rate and taking the poorest out of income tax will also help stimulate demand and assist those hurt by a stagnant economy. Meanwhile, the threshold for the 40p rate should be inflation adjusted, so that all taxpayers benefit from the income tax free threshold.

Abolish the top rate of capital gains tax and increase the tax free threshold to match that of income tax. Again, this taxes business and investment, and should be more closely aligned to a general lower tax approach across incomes.

Scrap employer national insurance and simplify the system, which is a hidden tax on employment. It effectively adds a tax on employing people above paying their taxed salary. Removing this will remove a considerable burden upon the cost of employment.

Abolish the planned fuel duty increase and declare that fuel duty will not rise for the rest of this Parliament, set aside 10p/l of fuel duty revenue to a new roads fund.

Abolish the beer duty escalator for this year and half beer duty for next year, declare that duties on alcohol and tobacco will not rise for the rest of this Parliament. Beer duty in the UK is the second highest in Europe, it should be cut when the budget is balanced, and the other sin taxes simply tax people's pleasures.

Scrap the TV licence fee. The BBC should be funded at a capped level through till the end of this Parliament, and be required to develop proposals for self-funding by that time, including subscriptions, donations and commercial activities. Meanwhile, the TV licence fee should be scrapped, and all pending prosecutions for non-payment to cease.

Cut Air Passenger Duty to the base £13 for all flight from all airports except Heathrow: Air Passenger Duty should be scrapped altogether when the budget is in balance, but meanwhile cutting it to the lowest level for all airports except Heathrow will provide relief to the regions and encourage a modest transfer of demand between London airports. It should also parallel an immediate withdrawal of the

Cut spending

Abolish the ringfencing of health and aid. It is ridiculous that DFID and the NHS shouldn't face the 1% reduction in spending that other departments are having to face. The 0.7% GDP target is partly being met because of economic stagnation. Aid should be voluntary, and the public should not be expected to fund ever increasing amounts of transfers to developing countries. Freeze that budget for the life of this Parliament. The NHS demands more money and the state provides it. This is unsustainable. It is time to freeze NHS spending in real terms for the life of this Parliament, and to look at reforms to make people more accountable for paying for their own healthcare through an insurance based model. Meanwhile, introduce charges for home visits by GPs, except to pensioners, and for non-attendance at scheduled NHS appointments.

Scrap new applications for child benefit. It is time the state stopped paying people to breed, so should declare that one year from now, there will be no new child benefit provided for children born after 1 April 2014. None. People wanting children after that point will have to rely on their own means, including whatever remaining benefits they may be on.

Reform pensioner benefits. Abolish the exemption on prescription charges for those aged between 60 and 65 (and higher as the state pension increases), scrap winter fuel allowance for pensioners on the 40p income tax rate and for those. Raise the age for free bus passes to 65 and for off peak travel only.

Abolish the legal obligation of local authorities to house all residents. Ceasing this legal obligation will mean local authorities will no longer be required to pay for hotels and other accommodation for people who turn up wanting housing.

Abolish income support for mortgage payments. If people take out mortgages they should buy mortgage protection insurance, not rely on taxpayers, many of whom do not own a home, to pay for their mortgage. No new applications for mortgage payment support should be accepted, and existing ones should have a one year transition period.

Scrap HS2 and subject all state spending on rail capital projects to financial sustainability tests. Road users pay a fortune in net taxes, but rail users continue to get the majority of the costs of their preferred mode paid for by taxpayers. There should be no more new capital support by the state in rail projects that wont pay for themselves, and Network Rail should increasingly be expected to borrow and fund rail capital projects from track access charges on train companies.

Announce the scrapping of the Departments for Culture, Media and Sport, and Business, Innovation and Skills as their functions will be wound down, abolished and residual ones transferred over the life of this Parliament to a single Department of Transitional State Affairs to manage low cost matters such as weights and measures, advise on company and business law reform, reform of competition and consumer law, liberalisation of media law, censorship, gambling and the arts.

Revise the Barnett formula, by funding the devolved governments on an identical per head of population basis.

Increase spending as a transition

Ringfence revenue from vehicle excise duty and 10p/l of fuel duty for roads into a fund that can receive funding bids from local authorities, the Highways Agency and the Welsh, Scottish and NI governments. This will be a net increase in spending on roads, which will match reforms to commercialise and privatise roads. This will be a transitional funding arrangement until privatised road companies charge motorists directly in what ever way they wish.

Privatise and restructure the state sector

Sell Channel 4 and the Royal Mail getting the state out of these two competitive sector and raising funds to retire public debt.

Announce a fundamental restructuring of energy policy on market grounds scrapping surcharges for green energy, subsidies for "sustainable electricity" and introducing a property rights framework for energy resource exploration including fracking.

Repeal the Climate Change Act, as it is utterly absurd to have a law binding the state to a policy.

Transform the Highways Agency into several regional companies and privatise, initially being funded from motoring taxes, but having the powers to introduce tolls with direct refunds of the fuel duty dedicated to road spending.

I'll be surprised if there is much more than a hint of any of these of course.

UK press regulation is a matter of freedom

2013-03-19T12:00:00.001+00:00

so says City AM editor Allister Heath in today's editorial, commenting on the press regulatory deal between ~~two~~ three parties that pay lip-service to freedom. It is an editorial that points out very clearly what is wrong and the more fundamental philosophical point.

He's right. It is worth reading his entire editorial, as he points out that the abuses by the press were illegal, the real issue was enforcement and corruption of the Police who colluded with the press on these actions (and the proposed law does not touch the Police, funnily enough).

When you consider the reality and truth evasion that is part and parcel of contemporary politics, and the hyperbolic partisanship expressed by the Labour Party on this issue, it ought to send shivers down the spines of anyone who claims to be liberal minded. He says consensus in politics is a disaster, primarily because it means something has been surrendered. He says:

few people would support cartels in business, so why are cartels of politicians so often welcomed? Ideological and political competition is just as important as commercial competition

Indeed, moreso. I am far more threatened by a political monopoly, than having only one company selling a product that I am not forced to buy.

Heath says that it is "the thickish end of an enormous wedge, the first time since 1695 that newspapers will be subject to statutory regulation", noting that it is unclear whether the provisions are compatible with Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, protecting freedom of speech

UKIP members and supporters, and indeed freedom loving Conservative might be given pause to consider their usual antipathy towards this piece of international law, that was born not from Brussels, but the Helsinki Accords, which opened the first crack onto the totalitarianism of the Soviet bloc in 1975.

Heath points out that the first amendment to the US Constitution would ensure that such a law would never occur, because it would be blatantly unconstitutional. Constitutional monarchists and other defenders of the "unwritten" British "constitution" would be wise to consider this as well.

The Labour Party has chosen to make this an almost class oriented, even mildly xenophobic war on Rupert Murdoch, presumably for spurning Gordon Brown in 2000. It pointedly focuses on his newspapers, ignoring those of other proprietors equally guilty of breaking the law and engaging in unethical behaviour. To be so blatantly partisan about one set of newspapers should have meant it was shut out of any discussions on this matter. You can't negotiate with a political party which is driven by political vengeance. It is in itself a threat to freedom of speech, and its record in government is not glowing on this issue. You can be sure that if the Sun and the Times had warmly embraced Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband, a very different stance would be taken by Labour.

It has, of course, been working hand in foot with the Hacked Off campaign, a clever campaign, led by the charismatic and generally well loved Hugh Grant, with a leftwing agenda based on attacking the press for pursuing profit and commercialism, among other things (as if the contributors to that campaign work for free). It has seconded victims of press criminality to harness their anger (few would sympathise with wealthy celebrities who get caught breaking the law) and garner public sympathy.

The Liberal Democrats have a strong proud tradition (as the Liberal Party) of being scrupulous on these issues, but have been star struck by the Hacked Off campaign, and has continued to sell out principles it once would hold high. It ought to drop the "Liberal" moniker once and for all, and replace it with "social" or some other insipid homely to distinguish itself as the socialist party that isn't aligned with the union movement.

Most disgusting though is how the Prime Minister has surrendered principle for political peace. Not only did he let Hacked Off participate in discussions between the three main parties about press regulation (with the press excluded), he decided he's rather silence the braying mob and his political opponents by, in substance if not in form, agreeing with them.

Conservative MPs who hold freedom dear should cross the floor in disgust, indeed I cannot understand why such MPs who, if it were Gordon Brown proposing such legislation, would fight tooth and nail to oppose it, will tolerate David Cameron leading them anymore. What freedom supporter in good conscience can now back a Conservative MP who will support this legislation, when the Socialist Democrats and Labour are all one and the same? Even Dr Sarah Wollaston MP who stood up for free speech in the House of Commons yesterday is a vibrant advocate of minimum priced alcohol. Most of those who speak of freedom always have a "but not here" in their pet area of control.

UKIP, of course, has a golden opportunity to lead on this issue by principle.

Heath hits it on the nose with the core issue - freedom. The public simply don't care.

"part of the problem is that we have fallen out of love with freedom. The public supports snooping, paternalism, curtailing civil liberties and endless regulation. Many have no problem with the state dictating how much people can be paid and telling people what they can eat or drink, and what they can do with their property. We may recoil in horror at the proposed state looting of bank accounts in Cyprus - but most Brits support wealth taxes. Freedom , ultimately is indivisible; the only reason why regulation of the media didn't happen any sooner was because newspapers were too influential. Now that their power is waning, they are fair game, like everything and everybody else"

and it is that, ladies and gentlemen, that is the problem.

David Cameron, Nick Clegg and maybe even Ed Miliband, will do more than pay lip-service to freedom when people demand it. For they are all and the same pragmatists whose key objective is to win and retain power.

You have to let them all know that your freedoms are not fair game anymore. Most of the newspapers are going to fight this, it is time you got behind those MPs who will fight it too. This isn't a left-right issue.

Index on Censorship has come out against it, you should too. Cameron, Clegg and Miliband deserve your anger.

Cameron concedes to the left's war on private media

2013-03-18T21:52:00.001+00:00

Let's be clear. Some journalists broke the law.

The McCann's sued for libel and won a six-figure sum, because of what the Daily Star and Express printed (although Portuguese press were far less generous). Phone hacking of Milly Dowler's phone was utterly vile, particularly because Police knew about it and did nothing, yet her were allegedly offered a seven figure settlement. Those acts, trespass and theft are all illegal. There are means to address this. Where the press broke the law, the issue is not a lack of law, but the unwillingness of the Police to enforce it.

So the Leveson inquiry was undertaken, and a lobby group was built up around demanding press regulation. Its leading front man was Hugh Grant, whose main complaint against the press was he was caught receiving oral sex from a prostitute. However, that campaign, "Hacked Off" soon turned into a parody of itself. There was a strong undercurrent of specific prejudice against Rupert Murdoch and by inference his newspapers (The Sun and The Times). Leftwing politicians jumped on board, with the Labour Party playing the same game. It became war against one newspaper group, not the dominant media outlet in the UK by any means of course - that's the state broadcaster that criminalises anyone who doesn't pay for it - the BBC.

After Lord Leveson produced his report, which notably gave scant attention to online media, including blogs and social media (which was partially a blessing, but spoke volumes about his ability to really take a strategic view of where media regulation fits into a world where anyone can be the media, with very little effort), the Prime Minister's first reaction was to support a new industry established regulator, but not one established by statute.

Then came out the wolves. Nothing focused Labour politicians, and to a lesser extent Liberal Democrats, so much as to paint the whole issue as a simple one of bashing the Murdoch press. It went like this.

- Newspapers are bad, some journalists did bad things, you can't trust them, they can't control themselves (unlike the beloved state owned BBC you're all made to pay for, which you all love, of course).

- Newspapers are owned by people who only want to make money and don't care what happens to the people they hurt. Especially Rupert Murdoch. He's bad (not because he doesn't support us anymore, no, never).

- There are so many victims we have to stand up for. Blank out their own successful lawsuits. Blank out the Police connivance with these practices, because people like the Police.

- The Conservatives are in bed with the Murdoch press, probably so they can hurt the poor, enrich themselves and their friends, ruin the economy and win elections.

- There needs to be a new law to control the press, to stop it printing bad things and doing bad things (that are already illegal).

- A new law can guarantee newspapers can print what they like, except what the regulator will say is wrong. That wont reduce what newspapers will print. It guarantees what we call "free speech".

David Cameron, to his credit, fought this. He supported the press coming together and creating a new independent industry-managed supervisory entity, that was not a creature of statute. Meanwhile, Hugh Grant and his friends wouldn't let go, hand in hand with Labour, implying the government was just an arm of Rupert Murdoch's empire.

Finally, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour entered "all party" talks to reach a compromise, after Hacked Off had already been outed for having threatened senior Labour MPs with a press release that would excoriate them for being gutless.

However, Hugh Grant need not have bothered, the spinelessness resides in Number 10. For David Cameron has caved in to accept "a little legislation", and while the parties were negotiating, the Hacked Out lobbyists were in the room with them. No think tanks, lobbyists or other interests were allowed. Apparently the transparency Hacked Off advocates doesn't apply to its own backroom deals with politicians, that affect not only an entire industry, but laws that bind us all.

What is the UK to get?

- A new law to underpin "Royal Charters";

- A Royal Charter to create a "recognition body" to oversee a press regulator;

- The Royal Charter will require two-thirds of MPs and peers to amend it (and presumably repeal it);

- The law to implement this will be a small amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, one that is already being used to set up a "green investment ~~boondoggle~~ bank" (so not drafted in haste is it now?);

- Newspapers that don't join up, will be liable for exemplary damages if a claim is upheld against them, as the Crime and Courts Bill is amended to do this (along with setting up a national crime agency);

- Newspapers could be fined up to £1 million and directed to publish apologies, on the front page if necessary;

- Newspapers could be directed to "leave people alone", whatever that means. Is it different from court orders against harassment?

- Alleged victims will have a complaints system they can pursue without going to court. There will be no costs at all, to complain, regardless of whether one wins or lose. Consider how many politicians, celebrities and nutcases will now abuse it.

- The Royal Charter states it covers "websites that provide news-related material, published in the United Kingdom", whatever that means. Presumably I'm doing that right now, maybe if I published it on my New Zealand blog it wouldn't count.

So a new system has been proposed, by all three main political parties. No discussion paper, no single piece of legislation, but a patchwork of bills currently going through Parliament getting amended to push this through quickly.

It theoretically means someone can complain, today, about your blog, twitter account or whatever, and you'll pay the costs to respond to it, and they will pay nothing.

Consider that existing law, made it nigh on impossible for the press to seriously investigate and publish allegations about deceased BBC superstar and serial sex offender Jimmy Savile.

What should happen?

The braying crowd should be ignored.

Freedom of speech does not require a law. It could do with a written constitution to strike out law, but it doesn't need a statute. Indeed it is defined by not having a law. There aren't laws to enable me to live my life the way I wish. Freedom is like that. It only needs laws to stop people.

The press may wish to set up a new supervisory body that newspapers can choose to sign up to, that can be the gold standard for press ethics. However, nobody should be forced to do that.

Media is changing, fast. The UK has some of the world's toughest laws on defamation, and as newspaper circulation numbers continue to drop, amateur journalism continues to grow, as individuals write what they wish.

Despite the rhetoric of some on the far left, the Murdoch press is not dominant. The Sun sells well, but no newspaper in the UK has anything remotely like the penetration of the BBC. 2 million read the Sun, but 9.3 million watch the BBC News channel in the UK and 5.46 million watch a single BBC late news broadcast.

However, this was never about dominance.

It was always ostensibly about "justice for the victims", but many of them have successfully won lawsuits or substantial settlements.

What it really has been about is settling scores. For certain celebrities to exercise power their money hasn't been able to buy (or rather it has through lobbying) and for politicians to exercise power and point score.

So we'll see, we'll see what happens when the first blog is subject to a complaint, when two-thirds of politicians amend the Royal Charter to "professionalise" journalism, of all kinds.

For me, I'll await to see if UKIP has the courage to say no to any of this, not that it will make any difference. The Conservative Party has surrendered press freedom to avoid taking flak from Hugh Grant and Ed Miliband.

May as well be governed by Labour.

COMING SOON

2013-03-17T21:33:00.001+00:00

Yes I will be blogging about the UK from here.

Life, liberty and economics as if freedom mattered, and reason.

With a touch of objectivism, as a moral grounding for capitalism and freedom.

My core objective is less government, a smaller state and the implementation of the non-initiation of force principle.

That means respecting the rights of all adults to live their lives the way they see fit, as long as they respect the sovereignty of others to do the same with their bodies, property and their lives. Children's rights to do the same are held in trust by parents or guardians.

It means believing that the role of the state is to protect and secure those rights from those who would initiate force, and fraud (force through breach of contract).

No major political party comes close to respecting this, let's hold them to account and assert the right to own our lives.