UK politics – Page 28 – Common Infirmities

Pirates

Outside of Germany, no one seems to have noticed the extraordinary efflorescence of a new party, Die Piraten, the Pirate Party. (Also, no one seems to have noticed that the German word PARTEI — political party — is an anagram of PIRATE.) It’s an international movement, of course, and I suppose it started in Sweden, with links to the Pirate Bay file-sharing site. As with many such political movements — fascism and the Green movement are just two examples — Germany has proved a particularly fertile ground, and the most recent state elections in Nordrhein-Westfalen found the Pirates winning 7.8% of the votes, nearly as many as the liberal FDP. Interestingly, that vote has drawn quite a bit of attention in the foreign press for its undermining the ruling coalition, but no one outside of Germany is talking about the Pirates.

There is a long tradition, going back to Cicero — and continuing through Gilbert and Sullivan — of invoking pirates as an ironic commentary on rapacious rulers, extended to rapacious capitalists by Bertolt Brecht and others. The association of piracy with illegal copying of artistic works goes back to the 17th century in England, as I learned from Adrian Johns’s magisterial book Piracy rights, where I also learned that the earliest designation of copying as piracy did not describe neglect of an author’s right to earn a living from his work (which right was nonexistent), but rather neglect of the king’s right to censor. A pirate was not someone who stole a poor scribbler’s hard-fought text, but rather one who arrogated to himself permission to publish without royal license. More recently, pirate radio expressed the opposition between piracy and censorship.

I find myself enormously encouraged by this movement. Their stated goals are ones I generally support: reform of intellectual property laws, data protection, civil rights and government transparency. But there’s not enough there to really make up a political program. I see it in generational terms. It may not be true that all property is theft, but it certainly seems that those who got into the world before us have gone out of their way to make sure that everything that exists has been carved up and allocated to owners, up to and including the land, the sea, their ideas, their music, and their genetic code.

German election poster — Greens: Every power needs something to drive it
Pirates: Strengthen education. Understand Physics.

Here’s an election campaign poster of the Piraten in NRW. The Greens on top with one of their solemn eco posters: Windmills and the slogan “Every source of power needs a driving force” (approximately), and then “Green makes the difference.” What does it mean? Damned if I know, but it sounds green!
Below it the Piraten put a graphically much cruder retort to this vaguely pious blather:
“Strengthen education. Understand physics.
You’d rather vote for the Pirates.”

Universities and charity

Here’s a weird, but hardly novel, controversy: Charity tax row: Oxbridge joins revolt.

The Oxford and Cambridge vice-chancellors wrote privately to Chancellor George Osborne saying his plans risked undermining the culture of university philanthropy. UK universities, which raised some £560m from charitable gifts last year, want him to rethink. Ministers want to stop tax avoidance. Mr Osborne says he is shocked by thescale of legal tax avoidance by multi-millionaires. Under current rules, higher-rate taxpayers can donate unlimited amounts of money to charity and offset it against their tax bill to effectively bring the amount of tax they pay down, sometimes to zero. But from 2013, uncapped tax reliefs – including those on charitable donations – are to be capped at £50,000 or 25% of a person’s income, whichever is higher… An Oxford University spokeswoman said that the government’s own policy emphasised the role of private and philanthropic investment, rather than the public purse. “A step that penalises the government’s own approach seems ill-considered.”

Hmmm. How about this alternative statement:

The university’s own justification depends on its promoting self-consistent argument, rather than specious self-serving sophistry. “An argument that contradicts the university’s own raison d’etre seems ill-considered.”

Continue reading “Universities and charity”

The revolution will not be televised devouring its own children

A perennial topic of public discussion ever since my childhood has been the sellout our not of the formerly revolutionary former youth of the Baby Boom. The false premise here is that they were the sellers rather than the buyers. While there are great acts of civil courage and genius (political, scientific, and artistic) revealed individually in that generation, as in every generation, when seen as a collective these people’s actions are indistinguishable from the script one would have expected if they had been forged into a steel-sinewed generational army equipped to plunder the past and the future. First, they sucked resources out of their parents while devising a cult of youth that absolved them of any need to respond with ordinary human gratitude. Then they determined to ensure that their own children would never do the same to them, by stitching up the tax system and the pensions to ensure that public resources would be bled dry by the time their successors tried to make a claim on them. Continue reading “The revolution will not be televised devouring its own children”

Consent of the governed

Speaking at the recent Conservative party conference, a government minister has said that the mass arrests and prison sentences for decent citizens who chose to rob shops and set buildings ablaze in London and other cities during a recent wave of looting, had brought the law into disrepute.

Our laws against arson were introduced centuries ago, when a typical London building was built of wood. There have been huge advances in fire-fighting technology since then. Our blanket ban on arson has been discredited, because it failed to keep up with these changes. And what about “vandalism”? Should the law really be fixated on the practices of wandering bands of hairy Germanic tribesmen? Can anyone genuinely say he thinks our laws against burglary are fit for a 21st century economy? By allowing a portion of the shops’ overpriced merchandise go up in flames, and another portion to the informal vending sector, where it is substantially marked down, we bring thousands of decent firebugs and thrifty shoppers back within the law, restoring the legitimacy of the penal system, improving productivity and delivering hundreds of millions of pounds of stimulus that the economy sorely needs.

No, sorry, I got that wrong. The correct quote is:

The 70mph motorway speed limit has become “discredited” and resulted in millions of motorists breaking the law, Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said today as he confirmed plans to consult on allowing it to rise to 80mph.

Mr Hammond told the Conservative Party conference the move would “restore the legitimacy” of the system and benefit the economy by “hundreds of millions of pounds”.

He said: “The limit that was introduced way back in 1965 – when the typical family car was a Ford Anglia.”

Mr Hammond said he owned an Anglia, as did Baroness Thatcher when she became an MP, but added: “Things have changed quite a bit since then. There have been huge advances in car technology, road deaths have been reduced by three-quarters.

“Meanwhile, the 70mph limit has been discredited because it failed to keep up with these changes – with almost half of all motorists exceeding it, bringing the law into disrepute.

“So I will consult on increasing the limit on motorways to 80 mph, bringing millions of decent motorists back within the law, restoring the legitimacy of the speed limit system, speeding up journey times, improving productivity and delivering hundreds of millions ofpounds of net economic benefits.”

We should start making a list. Laws that need to be ruthlessly enforced when they are disobeyed en masse: Arson, burglary, “theft by finding”, receiving stolen goods. Laws that need to be abolished when they are disobeyed en masse: Tax laws, speed limits. Hmmm. What’s the pattern? Prosperum ac felix scelus virtus vocatur. [Seneca. A successful and happy crime gets to be called virtue.]

Of course, Monty Python nailed it while I was still a toddler. In this case, the Mouse Sketch:

Make a thing illegal and it acquires a mystique. Look at arson – I mean, how many of us can honestly say that at one time or another he hasn’t set fire to some great public building? I know I have. The only way to bring the crime figures down is to reduce the number of offences.

British riots, further reflections

From the BBC web site:

Home Secretary Theresa May has asked the Metropolitan Police to check whether banning theft and arson is an effective strategy for preventing crime. Some criminologists have claimed that widespread looting and arson mean the laws are not having the desired effect. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mrs May hinted that the riot laws remained under review. She added: “There’s not much point in having laws that are inefficient.” She suggested that the funds currently spent on policing might be better spent on reconstruction.

No, sorry, I got that wrong. It wasn’t the Home Secretary, it was the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The correct quote is:

Chancellor George Osborne has asked the Inland Revenue to check whether the 50p top rate of income tax is actually making money for the government. Some economists have claimed that tax avoidance and evasion mean the rate is raising less income than expected. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Osborne hinted that the 50p rate remained under review. He added: “There’s not much point in having taxes that are very economically inefficient.”

Continue reading “British riots, further reflections”

British riots

The well-known history of enclosure riots in 16th and 17th century England fascinates above all for their orderliness. Describing one riot in early Jacobean Bedfordshire, V. Magagna writes “The assembly that plotted the riot met in the church[…] The leader of the riot was the village constable.”

I thought of this when I read the following on the BBC web site, on the third day of riots and looting throughout London:

“Full scale looting going on at Clarence convenience store right by the burning car on clarence road. “One by one” shouts one man as people crowd round to get into the shop, whose entrance has been smashed in. Women calling: can you get me a magazine? Other people asking for alcohol.”

One by one. That’s British looting for you. They’ll pillage, and they’ll rampage, and they’ll kill, but they’ll queue up in an orderly fashion to do it… particularly if they have hopes of being rewarded with alcohol.

“Petitioning implies a belief in a natural order of society protecting the interests of rich and poor alike, which the authorities can be expected to enforce once the misdeeds of individuals are brought to their notice. Even riot can be seen in this light, for the intention was usually to compell authority to maintain a traditional order, rather than to overturn it.” Underdown, 1985, p. 118

london looting

Genetics and Democracy in the United Kingdom

Solving the democracy deficit through modern science

With the impending union of male and female royalty breeders, there has been increasing tendency to cite Thomas Paine’s evergreen mockery: “the idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that of hereditary judges or hereditary juries; and as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man; and as ridiculous as an hereditary poet-laureate.” (Paine never got to see the number of mathematician children filling the posts in most of today’s leading mathematics departments, but the point is well taken.) Seen as the monarchical version of an election — the keystone of the procedure by which a legitimate head of state is created — a Royal wedding certainly feels a trifle arbitrary. But this opposition to monarchy, though it wears the finery of modernity, has failed to keep up with advancing technology. True, it might formerly have been the case that the hereditary principle made the choice of head of state no different from a lottery (for which, see this suggestion). It seems impossible to unite the hereditary principle with the increasingly popular beliefs that rulers should be selected by some non-random process, and that hoi polloi should have something to say about it. But now the following arrangements have been announced by the Palace (a particularly sodden corner of the palace wine cellar, to be precise)*:

Following the wedding, a selection of at least 5 royal spermatozoa** will be extracted and fully sequenced by a specially selected team at the Royal Institution for Genetics Pedigree Studies. The secret method (which, in a nod to popular taste, does use beer as a reagent) has been designed to be maximally non-destructive.
The sequences will published on the website princesperm.gov.uk. The public will have 5 days to register and vote for the one that they prefer be invited to form their new ruler.
The elected sperm will invited in the first instance to inseminate the royal egg. Should it fail in its attempt, the second-place sperm will be sent in. In the case of a repeat failure, a national referendum will be held to determine the correct voting procedure.

* It may be argued that this election proposal, being purely fictional and even farcical, has no bearing on the justification or not of the British monarchy. A dangerous argument indeed, for those who would dispense with fiction and farce would leave central pillars of the British constitutional order bereft of all foundation.

** Why are the future queen’s eggs not also sequenced? Choice of the ovum is a royal prerogative, cf. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, v. 5, section 113 (Oxford 1765-1769).

New Year Austerity Plan

A Press Release from the Ministry for Calendars, Clocks, and the Underclass

Deputy minister for Temporal Affairs Nigel Thwart (Lib-Dem) is releasing today guidelines for the coalition’s plan to save £120 billion by cancelling the new year. ‘We found that 1983 was still in excellent condition. Military chronologists have refurbished the year and put it into place to be serving us again starting shortly after 23:59 GMT on 31/12/2010. The year has functioned flawlessly in intensive testing, and we are confident that it will meet all the nation’s chronological needs through December, if not longer. We do recommend early bedtimes, though, to avoid overstressing the slightly threadbare post-midnight hours.”We reject claims of some malcontents that the Liberal Democrats have violated the pledge famously signed in blood* by Nick Clegg and other party leaders to “move the country into the future”. This is a coalition government, and we cannot expect to govern as we would like to had we a majority. We are most proud of our party’s influence to moderate the initial Conservative Party plan to return to 1940, which is currently owned by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. While this year would have been substantially cheaper, the Liberal Democrats maintain that such a regressive move would blatantly contradict our election manifesto pledge.’The year will be sold to a consortium of private investors, and leased back by the Crown, leaving the taxpayers with substantial savings.’We are confident that it will still be possible to modify the year to introduce a referendum on election reform.’
* Mr Clegg’s spokescaitiff has emphasised that it was not the Deputy Prime Minister’s own blood on the signature.

(by DS and JB)

Obesity and education standards

Applying lessons from education reform to win the fight agains obesity

A recent article in the British Medical Journal reports that obesity costs the UK £2 billion in direct and indirect costs. 22% of the British population is thought to be obese, defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher; some experts predict that this cost could rise to £45 billion by 2050. The problem of rising obesity, with its multifarious costs, has been described as intractable. These defeatist sentiments ignore the lessons of some of the great successes of social policy, and how seemingly intractable problems can melt away, when attacked with the right combination of zeal and creative new thinking. Consider the progress in state education over the past two decades, and particularly in the 13 years of the Labour government, after Tony Blair announced his three top priorities in the election campaign to be “education, education, education”.

Back in the 1980s, doomsayers were lamenting a collapse in UK secondary education, with the dissolution of the grammar schools. Today, A-level marks are the highest they have ever been, which must surely reflect a huge increase in British school children’s educational attainment. Education experts have expressed amazement at the educational progress over just the decade from 1997 to 2006: In 1997 only 87.2% of A-level (age 18) marks were passes, while by 2006 that had risen to a stunning 97.2%. The fraction of A grades (the highest possible) rose from 16% to 24%. Similar progress was recorded in the GCSE performance (age 16). The percentage of state school applicants admitted to Oxford rose in that time from less than half to 55%, which can only mean that these pupils are learning more, compared with their counterparts at expensive independent schools.

The key insight came from the Prime Minister’s Office for Post-Structuralist Policy Initiatives (PMOP-SPI, pronounced mop spy, the first P being silent), which recognised, in the words of director Pauline deVrouw, “Standards were created for man, not man for the standards. Therefore the Commons is lord over the standards.” This has been extended in the brilliant new Department of Health white paper “Health consequences of the standard kilogram”. “Obesity,” states the white paper’s forthright preamble, “has many causes, but ultimately it is a matter of centimetres and kilograms. The standard kilogram, although it was manufactured in London, is now kept in a vault in Paris, indifferent to the particular British mensuration needs.” The paper goes on to explain how just a 10% increase in the size of the kilogram — easily achievable with current technology, and barely even noticeable to the casual observer — would produce a 9% reduction in BMI, and thus reduce the number of obese Britons and the attendant costs by more than half. This approach is found to be vastly cheaper than the next most cost effective plan for reducing obesity, a complicated scheme which involves citizens exercising more and eating less junk. (What costs do accrue — mainly new scales — would be borne by the private sector, and would, in the present economic climate, be useful as an economic stimulus.)

For all that the French call their jealously guarded kilogram “Le Grand K“, the fact is that the kilogram is underweight. Not only has it failed to keep pace with the increasing demands that our population puts on the scale, it has apparently been shrinking even in absolute terms. According to one estimate, the French have managed to misplace 0.005% of Le Grand K (50 micrograms) in its first century. That may not sound like much, but a 0.005% reduction in the size of a kilogram leads inexorably to a 0.005% increase in BMI for the entire population. From this we may infer that there are about 3000 British adults who are currently obese, who would not be obese had the kilogram not diminished.*

Just as Britain’s leaders had the wisdom to withdraw from its fixed exchange rates in the 1990s, and to avoid the unworkable European monetary union, so we need politicians intrepid enough to withdraw from our archaic pessantory union with France. Like the European Central Bank, maintaining its hard-money policies which suit powerhouse Germany and impoverish weaker economies like Ireland and Greece, the myopic French small-kilogram policy, while perhaps acceptable to gallic lightweights, is having unacceptable consequences on this side of the Channel. How could we expect the same kilogram to suit a nation of snail-peckers and a nation of haggis-and-roast-beef-chompers? We are still calculating BMI with a kilogram that was milled in the era of top hats and whale-bone corsets. It’s time to repatriate the kilogram, and take control of the Britain’s weight problem, just as we have set British education on its unstoppable upward trajectory.

* These are the individuals with BMI currently between 30.000 and 30.0015.

What’s a queen for?

One really peculiar thing that immigrants from republican lands need to adjust to in the UK, is that they actually take this monarch thing seriously. Not in the sense that people regularly drink toasts to the Queen, or speculate about fine points of the order of succession, but that people genuinely think it a reasonable constitution order that the head of state should be selected on the basis that her father held a similar position many decades ago, and that her son (and grandson) should be presumed to take on the job after her demise. Having always lived in republics (except for a brief stint in the Netherlands) kings and queens seemed to me figures from fairy tales and history. I knew that there are people called kings and queens existing in the modern world, but that always seemed an unreal and somewhat ridiculous anachronism, like the toga party in Animal House, or hobby jousters. But when the most recent elections descended into chaos, the experts were clear that it would be the Queen’s prerogative (after consultation with her advisors) to decide which politician should be “invited” to form a government. Again and again the Prince of Wales makes scandals by interfering in London city planning, among other functions of government. They fuss and fume about the prince overstepping his constitutional bounds, but no one would think of telling the prince to just go fuck himself, and treat his “black spider letters” with the same consideration they would give to the letters of any citizen — is he even a citizen?

Which leads to my proposal, which I hope will be taken seriously, given the depth of the current financial crisis in Britain: A lottery for the right to be the next monarch. I suspect that very many people would be willing to stump up a few pounds for a shot, and quite a few might pay several millions for a really substantial chance. The winner of the lottery has exactly the same chance of having the personal qualities required of the head of state as the monarch selected by the genetic lottery currently in force. We might have to eliminate certain requirements of the job, like weekly meetings with the prime minister, to make it more attractive. They could keep the post until death, and then it would revert to the state for a future lottery.

Now, this may seem like a huge constitutional change, but when I read about the British Constitution, the only argument that ever seems to be presented for the hereditary principle is that it saves the British the nuisance of having to vote for their head of state, or of having some washed up old politician appointed head of state by his old confederates. I think it should be clear that my scheme also avoids these problems, as well as complying with all EU directives.

I’m sure the professionals can work out some good advertising slogans (“Paris is worth a mass, but London is worth a pound”; “The new Magna Carta” — stamped on a mock-up lottery ticket; “It’s never too late to have a royal birth”?), maybe a jingle or two, and a legal and constitutional framework.

All British institutions have submitted to the exigencies of finance, except the monarchy. It’s about time the Queen gets with the program and moves to the City.