John Hutton, Work and Pensions Minister, runs a department that has not improved either. Watching Andrew Marr’s impartial televisual feast this morning, Hutton sat down following Fiona Millar’s defence of comprehensive schools and Chris Huhne transferring his skillset from journalism to tax increases. A green paper on welfare will be published this week as a preparation for a new bill on the benefits system. Finding a gap between the latest revolution on criminal justice and educational appeasement, Hutton proposes radical measurements. Doctors will have to monitor and report on how many sicknotes they issue.
Doctors could be offered bonuses for cutting the numbers of long-term sick notes they issue as part of a radical plan to slash incapacity benefit claims,.
Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton said that the proposal was under consideration as part of the Government’s package of welfare reforms.
“It has been mooted and I think, again, this is something we would like to talk to the GPs about,” he told the BBC1 Sunday AM programme.
No doubt league tables and auditing will follow; a harsh judgement but the micromanagement of benefit and dependency that is proposed will not work. Yet again, the response of the government to a perceived problem is measurement and management, in a centralised reporting structure. The policy is reported to have some teeth:
Ministers want to drastically cut the 2.7 million people claiming incapacity benefit (IB) at an annual cost of £12.5 billion, by getting those who are able to do some form of work back into jobs.
It is expected that the green paper will include proposals to cut IB payments by up to £10.93 a week for claimants who refuse to attend a job interview, rising to £21.86 for a second refusal.
The Government is also planning to install employment advisers in GPs surgeries – with claimants being assessed to see what work they are capable of doing before they can qualify for IB.
Even the name of the benefit is to change in order to underline the new approach.
“Incapacity benefit implies that you are incapable of doing anything, it is completely hopeless. I think we shouldn’t take that view,” Mr Hutton said.
Such teeth may be drawn in the face of Labour rebels, since many backbenchers will oppose taking money from those identified as incapacitated by the benefits system. Lo and behold! what remains: some spin as ‘incapacity benefit’ is rebranded, perhaps as ‘Brown’s munificence’ or ‘for the trouble you took to vote Labour’; and lots of shiny new part-time public sector positions to reduce the headline figures.
The real solution is more straightforward: privatise provision with incentives to reduce the figures and get those drawing benefits back to work. If you are filmed playing squash on a ‘bad back’, there may be some bad news: London Transport probably will not employ you but you can still join the RMT.
It has been said that government departments tend to be named after whatever it is they are trying to prevent (such as “education”, “trade and industry”, “welfare”), so it sounds like he is doing his job more or less as we might expect.
Yes, a Department For National Identification Database would be a good start methinks …
Perry that comment has been duly stolen and added to my growing list of great quotations.
Why are doctors to be given money to write only ‘correct’ sick notes? Shouldn’t they have been doing that all along, and don’t doctors get paid enough already? Even if doctors are currently signing sick notes for people who are capable for work, what extra expense is a doctor incurring changing his or her policy on sicknotes to suit government policy?
One of the principle reasons so many people are living permanently on incapacity benefit is that GPs are signing long term sick-notes to anyone with a sniffle and a sore throat.
It is encouraging that the government is trying to reduce dependancy. Tying benefits to a willingness to seek employment and incentivising GPs to write less sick-notes is surely to be applauded.
Rather than always searching for the perfect solution, can you not accept a simple improvement ?
This govt rarely moves in the right direction. Let’s applaud them when they do.
pommygranate,
Unfortunately it tends not to be that simple. The reality is not so much down to GP’s signing ‘incapacity’ benefit statements but more because of the government massaging the unemployment figures, as they have been doing for well over 20 years now. Someone who has been claiming ‘job seeker’s allowance’ for over 6 months is thereafter placed on incapacity benefit and thus can not technically be regarded as ‘unemployed’ any longer.
At the last election the Tories made much of the high numbers of people living on some kind of disability benefit. Sadly they should know – they created that system of obscuring the real figures from the public.
Julian
Certainly the true unemployment figures in the UK are substantially higher than the 4% often proudly quoted. I hadnt realised that after six months people are automatically re-assigned to incapacity benefit. Are you sure this is correct?
All the more reason to tackle the problem.
The Government approach to tackling doctors as the root of the problem – and giving them more work to do (and monitored and measured accordingly) to resolve it – isn’t going to work.
People don’t work because they can live perfectly well by not working. The welfare system juggernaut has allowed people to stay indoors and check daily whether daytime TV is any good.
Most GPs recognise malingerers and hypochondriacs on sight. But let us not think the dodgers don’t know this. I knew a guy who would arrange to see the one doctor at his medical centre who would unhesitatingly issue pills for “depression.” The other docs would tell this man to relax, lay off the booze and go for a long walk if he felt low. Those doctors he carefully avoided, if only because being told he was right to be “depressed” made him feel better.
hereandnow
We all know the present system isn’t working, but what would you actually do to change things
It needs to be financially unviable not to work and socially unviable to live a life of crime. So drop the pensions and benefits by 20% a year, and use the money to imprison real criminals. Combined with some red tape reform, this will allow ‘microlabour’ – emplying people for work rather than for a ‘job’. Those with skills will get a job, those without will get work. Those who want to live in poverty (real poverty) will do so, and those who want to steal can rot in jail. Next, squaring the circle and picking next weeks lottery numbers.
pommygranate,
My apologies, as always with bureaucracy they have slightly altered how unemployment benefits are paid out. The common ‘Job Seeker’s Allowance’ is now paid for anything between 6 months and a year, and can depend upon how much National Insurance you paid in the past 2 years (there is aalso a variant that does not depend upon that). After that period has expired you go onto ‘Income Support’ which is also paid to disabled people, one parent families and similar, albeit as a supplement to their existing benefit – thus the old term for that as ‘Supplementary Benefit’. After 28 weeks on Income Support you then qualify for Incapacity Benefit; since you have now not held a job for over a year you must, in the Department of Work and Pensions‘ view, be either mentally or physically disabled. Worth noting from that link that the longer you claim the more money you will receive.
Obviously by this time you are now labelled as a mentally incapacitated person instead of an unemployed person.
It seems an awful waste of highly-trained doctors’ time to be signing sick-notes at all. Presumably they do it in most elective sickness cases because it is less trouble than refusing to do so, and minimises their time away from their medical practice that might be involved in arguing or getting attacked.
Finding a system that didn’t depend on sick-notes would mean more effective GPs as well as potential benefits and sick-pay savings. But it would involve both abolishing some forms and systems for processing, and some embarrassing changes to unemployment statistics, so it is plainly out of the question.
“privatise provision”
What do you mean, Philip? Do you mean the libertarian solution of abolishing State involvement in these matters, or do you mean some Blair/Cameron scheme for “contracting” out the actual running of the benefits system, but with the Government still taxing us all to pay for it?
Julien Taylor, Wrong! unfortunatly you have left out the most maligned. Namely those like myself, I spent 32 yrs working, after( leaving school at 16) I was diagnosed with a degenerative Neuro Disorder, Incapacity Benefit Yes, Income Support NO, i had unfortunatly had the audacity to have some meager savings, so i should have pissed it up against a wall. As has been stated oft on this site ” The state is not your friend” Philip.
“The Government is also planning to install employment advisers in GPs surgeries – with claimants being assessed to see what work they are capable of doing before they can qualify for IB.”
Who are these paragons of medical and occupastional theraputic skills going to be?
Will they be allowed to see confidential medical records,will they be able to second guess Doctors.
There doesnt seem much chance of the medical profession allowing these snoops space,the security angle is too risky in some areas where the advisers will get beaten to a pulp by an invalid wielding a crutch.
But then again,hasn’t thei all been gone through before,is it not just another ZaNulabor reannouncement?
Whether the state or an insurance company pays Incapacity Benefits – you always need a doctor’s certificate. There is no getting around this fact, and no way to relieve doctors of this burden and no other solution.
So, as pommygranate said:
“This govt rarely moves in the right direction. Let’s applaud them when they do. ”
As long as govt pays out welfare benefits there is little that can be done towards reform, except tightening a little the rules and their enforcement, and lowering a little the benefits.
I understand the reason doctors sign off on sick notes so easily is, the type of malingerer who demands a sick note is also the type of person who gets violent when crossed. It just makes life easier for the doctor and the people who work in his surgery, if the doctor signs the note and gets him out of the way without trouble.
There are other ways of reform,taking a whole layer of those with low pay out of taxation .Getting rid of Browns pecksniffian and labrythine benefits system would be another.
The system discourages those on benefits from taking any legitimate work at all,what has to be remembered is that to get benefits people have to conform to certain standards,so they do.
Many of the standards were instituted years ago and are in the nature of,”Can that man walk in a straight line towards the guns,Good, off he goes then”.
The whole thing needs rebuilding.
The public sector early retirement scam should go first.
Is there no ill that they will not attempt to remedy with command and control?
GPs to become enmeshed as tools of the Statist soup kitchen?
Next: Firemen. 451degF.
An only tangentially related point, perhaps, but –
Does anyone recall ever having heard a serious discussion of whether those in receipt of monies from the state, whether as recipients of welfare or employees, should be disenfranchised? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard such a dicussion. It might be interesting.
In the states, private insurers look for patterns of workman comp fraud by looking at the ratios of diagnoses for various ailments by particular doctors. People gaming the system usually opt for diseases or injuries for which there is no objective test like soft tissue injuries, some types of neuralgic pain and mild mental illness.
Rather than putting some kind of quota system in place, the state should first look for fraud by seeing if the system is paying out for a lot of ambiguous illnesses.
RobtE – I have been banging on about this on Samizdata for two years. I say, once they become wards of the state, they loose their adult status and become disenfranchised.
I believe only the wealth creating segment, the armed forces and the emergency services (although I think I would now exclude the police) should have the vote. Plus pensioners who paid into the system all their lives.
I’m told the latest way to get invalidity is to claim you have agoraphobia. There is no way to detect it with an MRI or other scan and if the “sufferer” is called in to talk about it they claim they can’t leave the house and the DSS must do a home visit. Of course the chances of this are roughly the same as a pig flying. Oh and sometimes another member of the persons family can claim a carers allowance as well. The trouble with that complaint though as that you can’t get a free motability car such as was given to the famous invalidity claimer Abu Hamza so its swings and roundabouts really.
The terrible thing is I know a couple of people who really are ill and have had terrible problems claiming. This seems to be because they were nice and pleasant to all concerned and that gets you no where.
Verity –
I don’t have a fixed opinion on this, and am quite willing to be educated. I can see both sides. On the one hand, there is a fundamental right, owed to us all as human beings, to be able to choose who will dictate to us what we must and must not do (the purpose of any government, after all). On the other hand, there is the question of whether anyone in receipt of state funds (and here I would include all employees of the state, as well as all recipients of state monies, including pensioners, civil servants, and MPs), should be given a voice in matters which will, in the end, benefit themselves monetarily. Such a situation would not be allowed to exist in the business world, so why in the political?
As I said, I am willing to be educated on this one.
RobtE – I don’t know any more than you do, except my opinion is firm and I believe it would keep politicians more honest. God knows, they’re not going to do it by themselves. But if it is no longer in their power to promise huge raises to huge tranches of people, maybe they’ll start concentrating on pleasing the wealth creators. Wouldn’t that be bracing?
I would continue to give pensioners the vote IF they had contributed their taxes for all those years. Not if they had simply segued off benfit/single-mother/family allowance and become an old age pensioner.
Definitely, I would continue to give the armed services a vote. This is because protecting our borders is one of the few things that governments have a legitimate mandate to spend taxpayers’ money for.
The police, now that they have become the enforcers of political fashion rather than keeping the peace, forget it. No vote. Firemen and ambulance drivers – I would probably continue to allow the franchise, although I am open to persuasion on this.
Other than that, absolutely no one in the public sector should be allowed a vote. I don’t believe it’s a human right. If you want a say in how the country’s run, contribute money through wealth creation, not recycling in and out of the Exchequer in the form of “taxes”. Definitely, I would include MPs in this and the prime minister. You didn’t contribute wealth, you don’t get a vote in how other people’s money is spent.
All these people could have some kind of alternate, mini-vote of some kind. Like voting on deciding the date of the election or something stupid like that. Who cares? Just get everyone with a vested interest in voting for the person who promises them the most money and the money free services, off the electoral rolls. (This would also mean a huge drop in “postal votes”, hein?)
But the people who collect the taxes to pay for the armed services don’t get to vote?
The armed services don’t create wealth. Expenditure on the military is fundamentally wasted.
EG
Euan Gray, as your post was mercifully short, I’ll respond.
Obviously, when I included the armed forces in the list of those entitled to vote, I was making an exception. I was saying, no one who doesn’t contribute actual funds to the Exchequer should have a vote, EXCEPT the armed services because their function is to the benefit of all of us.
The people who collect the money to pay for the armed forces are civil servants. They don’t get a vote. For god’s sake, it’s not a complicated argument to follow.
If you reply with more than two short paragraphs, I will not respond.
Of course, but how many other exceptions would there be? Not the police in general, but what about anti-terrorist police? Not civil servants in general, but what about civil servants whose job it is to detect fraud in claims on state funds? And so tediously on.
No, it isn’t. However, it isn’t a particularly clever one either. Essentially you are saying that people who spend tax money in ways you approve of can vote, but those responsible for ensuring they actually have this money to spend in the first place cannot. And what about the civilian staff of the MoD – there’s a lot of them, and they’re just civil servants, so do they get to vote?
Your idea is to have a fairly arbitrary and somewhat capricious grant of the vote, leaving the people who control the raising and distribution of state funds with no say. This would, almost certainly, lead to graft and corruption on an unnecessary scale.
EG
A further objection is the praetorian guard one.
A scheme such as that proposed would give disproportionate political influence to the military, which is generally a Bad Thing ™ in any country. Libertarians should be wary of that, because the things armies really like (and indeed depend utterly on) are regulation, discipline and control. I imagine you wouldn’t especially want a society governed by such a group, but this idea would set them a good few steps down the road to political control.
EG
Verity:
What about bin men? Surely collecting our rubbish is an essential service as any – providing sanitary conditions in our streets is hardly a government-invented, quango-type job. And further more, what if these essential members of our society would like to vote to have their industry privatized?
Your suggestion is that a job that involves ‘wealth creation’ is somehow morally superior to any other type of job, as if collecting rubbish were just as much a waste of money as advising those bin men on political correctness. It also suggests that almost any job (your exceptions noted) that is paid for by taxes is worthless – how does it benefit you, exactly, to not pay for other people’s rubbish collection, or water purification for that matter, if it leads to an outbreak of cholera in Hackney (or poor area of whatever town you live in).
No, Nick, on several counts.
Wealth creation is not “morally” superior. But we could live without bin men by all hauling our own rubbish to the dump. We cannot live without wealth.
Wealth creators are therefore essential to the health of any nation. Any other service can be bought and paid for without conferring a say in who runs the country. As long as they receive their pay, pensions and early retirement, there will be people queuing up to take their civil service examinations.
We cannot survive as a nation without our armed forces. We can do just fine without street football coordinators, real nappy trainers, diversity instructors, council Urdu translators to name the most ludicrous. People who go into the civil service hoping to reach the rarified corridors of power can live perfectly happily with their plump salaries and their early retirement with generous pensions without having the right to vote.
Democracy doesn’t work these days. The public segment has expanded and encroached too far. Bus drivers, for example, should be employed by private companies. So should doctors. So should bin men – some of whom I believe are indeed privately employed.
We need to modify it so the majority is not overwhelmed by special pleaders in the ever burgeoning state sector and quasi state sector. If it takes modifying the right to vote, so what? No one is forced into the public sector at gun point.
I meant to add that those on any kind of long term state benefit (there should be a limit to how long one can be unemployed and supported by the state, for example; let’s say six months is a more than generous period) should lose their vote until they become contributors again. I’ve already covered OAPs.
By all means continue to give disability allowances, but the people receiving them should not have a say in who controls the national coffers. This includes the vast tranche of single mothers who receive free living accommodation, free medical care for themselves and their children and gifts of money (with which they are dissatisfied). When these two vast sectors together have the power, they continue to vote themselves rises, to the detriment of the wealth of the nation.
To get picky about the MoD people supporting the armed forces behind the scenes is silly. This is broad brush strokes. Far more knowledgeable and sophisticated people than me can do the details. It’s just an idea I’m putting forward.
Get non wealth-generators out of the voting business.
4″ tar brush, I’d think.
It just isn’t well thought out at all. Creating some replacement nomenklatura purely on the basis of knee-jerk prejudice about the nature of one’s employer isn’t terribly sensible.
EG
Euan Gray – Don’t tell me what is not “terribly sensible” as your judgement is of no consequence to the argument.
I didn’t come in with a formal national five-year plan. I came in with an idea for others – including you – to judge. It’s an idea; that’s all.
Get Britain’s vast public, and welfare recipient, sectors out of the voting booths and let us see the results.
It’s time for a new form of democracy as our current one is so corrupted by public servant and welfare recipient tit-suckers they are overtaking the people who actually produce the wealth, and this applies all over the West and some countries struggling out of the Third World. Passengers shouldn’t get a vote on where the train’s going.
I disagree with much of Verity’s thoughts but it is an interesting and relevant debate to have. The “right” to vote is clearly not a universal one (for example, noone objects to school children being barred from the vote) and should be up for debate.
The underlying premise behind Verity’s argument is a good one, though. Those people who directly benefit from the government are incentivised to vote for a party that safeguards their interests, irregardless of the health of the nation.
Perhaps a more manageable alternative would be to restrict the vote to taxpayers (past and present).
Democracy has never really worked – though as an idea it has entertained millions for years.
The trouble is, voting bears no relation to government other than choosing once every five years who will make any decision they like without consulting anyone else, whatever the consequences. That’s why they all strive for a majority, as it makes control trouble-free and debates largely irrelevant.
As such the general public long since realised that voting is a milk sop to keep them in line – though it does offer some folk something to do on an occasional Thursday night. Turnouts at elections are usually pathetic in numbers and apathetic in terms of voting in whatever the local shade of donkey.
So let’s think the unthinkable with “democracy”. First, disenfranchise swathes of people who have no interest in a stable and happy society (criminals, aggressive immigrants, benefit-careerists, etc) and allow people to “earn” a vote in some way. Secondly, those people granted the privilege of a vote will be required to monitor the government’s work by regular (probably annual) voting.
The problem we have is that political parties won’t vote for that. Taking the right to vote away the louts, lazies and Laden-lovers means that some of them (Nu-Labour for one) won’t get much support. That’s why postal voting was such a wheeze, especially in areas where there is a high regard for a national tradition of ballot-rigging.
The next wheeze may well be to lower the voting age to 16 to bring in a lot of fresh-faced (or spotty-faced) idealistic voters, but I wouldn’t rule out giving relatives in far-away places the chance to vote too on the basis they might well be coming over here one day.
So the reform of the benefits system and a reform of the “democratic” process probably goes hand-in-hand. But as the nation’s current problems are too much for the government to sort out they aren’t going to give themselves extra work with this one.
It’s an idea; that’s all.
Yup. I’m with Euan. It’s a bad idea, badly thought out.
You do this a lot and then get rude with people about it. Others which spring to mind include the concept of all laws lapsing after a fixed period and deporting certain segments of the adult population.
Perry is quite right, if you want change, you change the way most people think about things. Disenfranchising people isn’t the way to achieve that.
This is about the only way it can work.
A government, in order to function, must have power and authority and it must have it over the whole nation – not just the bits that voted for it. Government is not like buying spuds in Tesco where different voters can get different governments. Under no sane system is it possible IN PRACTICE to have state authority applying only to those who agree with it.
It is unreasonable to expect the people to put up with this exercise of pretty much supreme executive power without limit of time, and so there must be some, ideally peaceful, mechanism for changing the government now and then.
Hence, we have in both the UK and the US a powerful central authority – with near absolute power in the case of the British PM – but with time limits on how long that authority can be exercised.
Democracy is by no means perfect, but it is arguably less imperfect than aristocracy, oligarchy, autocracy, military dictatorship, anarchy or councils of workers’ and peasants’ deputies.
It is NOT possible to create a perfect and immutable system of government. Whilst a case can be made for restricting the franchise to “productive” classes, or those who went to the right sort of school, or have the right colour of skin or type of religious belief, or whatever other petty prejudice one has, such schemes inevitably fail because all they do is make government of the people for a proportion of the people.
EG
Daveon
It’s a bad idea, badly thought out
No it isn’t. It’s actually a good idea, badly thought out.
Should people who contribute nothing be entitled to vote? Why is voting a “right”? In a civilised society, the basic “rights” are food, warmth, shelter and protection from harm. Nothing else.
I think a restriction of right to such things is appropriate to a society in which it is very difficult to progress beyond an extremely basic lifestyle – which of course has been the case for about 99.9% of human history. In a modern developed society there is no real daily struggle for survival on the part of pretty much anyone, and thus such a restricted view of right is no longer useful. It is useful in the Third World, where there are millions who do face a daily struggle just to survive, who don’t have even these rights and would benefit greatly from them.
I would say that this idea of severely limited basic rights would apply to newly-independent America, or to the UK at the start of the industrial revolution. Given the harshness of everyday life and the lack of free time, rights much beyond this would be for most people a pointless frippery they could never put to any practical use.
Although several regulars here seem to have difficulty with the concept, things do change. Society has been transformed radically over the past 200 years, people have in general freedom from want of these basic needs and they have vastly increased leisure time & the economic means to do things with it. Inevitably, this is going to change the social, political and economic views of right.
It’s not possible to revert to the somewhat primitive view of basic rights illustrated, or at least not unless one also dismantles the modern economy, breaks up the cities into small towns and reverts to an agrarian society in which people don’t expect other rights because they simply don’t have the time to even think about them. And you can’t do that, for the simple reason that you can’t just turn the clock back.
To suggest it is possible is not libertarianism but rather a somewhat extreme reactionary conservatism. I have long thought that for many here the two are seen as interchangeable descriptions.
EG
EG
Are you Neil Kinnock?
No, just someone who eschews simplistic ideology in favour of practicality.
EG
EG: “This is about the only way it can work.”
My point being is democracy doesn’t work, whatever we think of the merits of our “civilised” method.
We chose who exactly to run the country? We choose those who are willing to stand. This includes people with self-interest, those with agendas they wil not share before elected, people who want to give well-paid jobs to their friends, people who yearn for power on the basis they get off on it.
I am not arguing that the government shouldn’t govern, but in what areas does our blanket approval of them allow them to make any decision they like? Take ID cards: those who really like the idea can probably afford to relocate themselves and their families in the future to a place that doesn’t have them, or build in some exclusion-clause for their kind.
If you think democracy allows debate and free-speech, even in parliament, you are wrong.
A time limited autocrat? In effect we have that already. Problem: our PM keeps getting re-elected until he gets bored with it. Anyway, every five years is fine by the politicals. Voters get used to be taxed and controlled, like frogs in water being brought to the boil, so they don’t mind too much as they forget how it used to be. Yes, a government can do a lot of damage in five years.
You say such schemes to have a different approach fail because: “all they do is make government of the people for a proportion of the people.”
Er, isn’t that exactly what we have got already?
Oh, and who mentioned skin colour or religion? I talked about aggressive immigrants, which naively I assumed to be of any skin colour. As for religion, every religion has its share of lunatics and a majority of quietly faithful, so I make no judgement there.
EG
For your benefit, i have just read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I had not read it before. It is surprisingly good.
The relevant parts to this thread are
Article 25 – Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control and
Article 29 – everyone has duties to the community
I fully agree with both.
It is Article 21 that is up for debate
everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country
But it works better than the alternative. You can’t get perfection, and being the least bad system is about as good as you’re going to get.
Many of the issues you identify concerning the venality of elected representatives are valid, but they don’t apply to all such representatives, nor is it the case that people only go into politics in order to enrich themselves or their friends. However, most of the issues could more easily be dealt with by a system of term limits and – possibly – by the replacement of general elections with elections only for single seats as and when required. A tighter system of personal morality and probity in public office would also be helpful, but this will only work if the morality is widely enough shared in society, otherwise it will be seen as stuffy antediluvian rules.
There are very few such places. Britain is very much an exception in not having ID cards, and altough that does not mean not having them is wrong, it does perhaps mean that people should consider why it is that almost everyone else does things a different way.
It allows it to a far greater extent than most dictatorships, and it protects it to a far greater extent than anarchy. Again, you can’t get perfection.
No, he gets re-elected if there is no effective opposition or if his government is doing well enough as far as enough people are concerned. In the present case, the first has been achieved by the petty selfishness of people like UKIP, the Thatcherite rump in the Conservative party and the libertarian micro-fringe creating internecine warfare within the opposition, making it unelectable by showing up its divisions and by compelling it to consider ill-advised and deeply unpopular policy. In the second case, the economy has managed to chug along well enough, thanks partly to Thatcher’s legacy and partly to EU economic requirements. When you get both, the PM gets a nice majority. It reduced last time because the Tories are at last shaking off the lunatic fringe which has crippled them since the mid 90s.
Strangely enough, most people don’t seem to object very much to the idea of obeying public rules in public places, to paying tax in return for state services, and to accepting regulation in fairly wide areas of life. It has been this way for a VERY long time, so it’s hardly new.
It’s a bit of a cliche that people respond positively to firm commands given in a clear and confident voice. Cliches become cliches because they contain a lot of truth, and there is much truth in this one. I’ve used it myself often enough in life, and it works.
Contrary to popular misconception, a frog in such circumstances will always jump out of the pan long before the water even approaches boiling.
There are often calls hereabout for things to go back to the way they used to be, or to heed tradition. That’s just reactionary conservatism, of course, but it raises an interesting point. As I commented before in another thread, England has at various times been a foreign colony, a series of squabbling petty fiefdoms, a nation under semi-permanent seige, a vassal of a foreign power, a monarchical dictatorship, a feudal backwater, a military dictatorship, a constitutional monarchy and a representative democracy. Which one of these meets your criteria for the way “it used to be,” which one is the “traditional” one?
To a point, but not explicitly so and not with the legal disenfranchising of large segments of the populace.
EG
If you agree with 25 and 29, then 21 or something very like it is pretty much inevitable.
The alternative is a paternalistic aristocracy, and whilst you may be content to live under suhc a system most people probably wouldn’t.
Realistically, governments can only govern with the consent of the governed, or at least with the absence of their active opposition. A peaceful and generally successful way of ensuring this consent is understood is popular participation in government by means of representative democracy. Thus far, a more successful alternative has not emerged.
EG
I believe the US term for what would result from Verity’s suggestion is ‘Pork’. It is naive in the extreme to think that those working outside the public sector don’t want to get their hands on taxpayers money. Does the name John DeLorean ring any bells?
My $0.02 on ‘disenfranchisement’.
I’d flip the argument around and say we actually need to put in place measures so the sector of the population under discussion shrinks to an amount so as to make their votes negligable. To disenfranchise them is just dealing with the symptom, not the disease.
First up will be to not increase state handouts/housing to those on state aid who increase their family. We need to break the cycle and psychology of dependence and this is as good a place to start.
I’d make the following points:
1. Not all state employees or beneficiaries of state largesse are automatically Labour (or Democrat) voters;
2. Those that are Labour (or Democrat) voters would likely remain so even if no longer employed by / dependent on the state, and probably were so prior to their employment/dependency.
Perfectly correct. But there is no real cure for how people vote. I think much of the argument comes down to “I don’t like the way people are voting, so let’s stop them voting.” This is unlikely to succeed.
EG
Name for incapacity benefit: Gimp’s Dole. To be matched by other names for other benefits such as: Shirker’s Dole, Slut’s Dole, etc etc.
ian – My god, is a name from the past, John de Lorean, the best you can come up with? That tells me your point is weak.
Euan Gray, I didn’t bother to read your windy post, but did, as I was scrolling down, catch the italicised “frog in boiling water” quote. I have asked before, can we please give this poor frog a break and think of a new analogy?
Verity: agreed about the frog. It’s such an insulting analogy! Frogs are dumb animals, their comprehension is not comparable or analogous to that of humans. When people ignore slow change, it’s because their principles aren’t being pushed, not because they didn’t notice.
It is actually quite often because they don’t notice. Small changes pass unnoticed, and over time amount to significant change, but people don’t notice the individual steps.
EG
EG, that’s exactly what I’m disagreeing with. People draw “lines in the sand” and will trigger into revolt if the situation crosses those lines. An example is ID cards. There are many people for whom those are unacceptable. Not as many as I’d like, but those people will definitely defy the law regardless of Blair’s deliberately slow approach to compulsion.
Gradualism can make it harder for people to argue a consistent case against the one change they won’t tolerate, but it won’t trick them into accepting it. People have memories, and where those fail, books.
I agree with Julian Morrison. People do notice, and note, changes. It’s just that they usually accommodate themselves to them, if they’re not too harsh. The ID cards may be a step too far because a lot of people, across the board, are saying, “No. I don’t like this. I won’t do it.” This isn’t because they haven’t noticed all the other changes.
“as I was scrolling down, [I cuaght] the italicised “frog in boiling water” quote. I have asked before, can we please give this poor frog a break and think of a new analogy?”
Verity boiling in oil???
Just trying to be helpful.
Thanks for your considered reply, EG. I regret dragging a frog into boiling water. I cheerfully admit I have never done this, so my evidence of the effect is poor and I agree all amphibians should be liberated from pans perched over flames.
Just as I largely think we should all be liberated from oppressive state intervention labouring under the guise of democracy.
As for my “as it used to be” for voters I wasn’t delving back much further than maybe forty years. To the feudal backwater bit, I suppose.
Verity,
Would you allow employees of Network Rail to vote? After all, they’re in the private sector because the government told the ONS to rule that they are.
And GPs – they get all their income from state and their generous pension scheme is state-run, but of course, they are self employed.
The point is that the government has taken over many areas of the economy. You may have decided on a career in the public sector and now be in the private sector, or vice versa.
And would you take on new civil servants to decide on who could vote? Would these people have to disenfranchise themselves (or decide whether to disenfranchise themslelves)?
Your proposal isn’t feasible.
Euan – just to clarify, I am not about arguing how people vote.
As to the Human Rights issue, I am in favour of 21, as to allow one group to be denied voting and participation is on the road to Fascism and Islamofascism (the concept of Dhimmi).
As to 25, I am unsure as to why a person can DEMAND an entity or State provide shelter, medical etc. What the declaration should say is people shoiuld not be PREVENTED from having such things, i.e. you do not actively DENY people. In the present wording it makes out that someone can just sit there and hold out their hand and be provided for. That is simply insane.
The majority of the objections seem to centre around the fact they’ll be required to pay for it. If it were to be “free” I doubt you’d see that much objection.
I am well aware of the “it’s not the card, it’s the database” argument against them, but I don’t think that flies particularly well in practice, and here’s why: over the past decades, governments of all stripes have greatly increased the amount and scope of data retained centrally on the average citizen. Few if any people have raised particularly loud objections to this process. It has also been part of the gradual centralisation of authority in the UK, the biggest recent culprit for which was the blessed Saint Margaret.
On the whole, people have not particularly noticed this ongoing centralisation, nor have they particularly objected to it, and now when we come to consider ID cards many people seem to think “so what, they already have all this information anyway.” Pragmatically, the major difference the ID database makes is that it takes less time to find the various bits of information, it does NOT mean that new (other than biometrics) information is available.
So, what happens is that people generally don’t notice the salami tactics of increasing centralisation, and even if they do they don’t make much fuss about it. When it becomes obvious that it has resulted in a significant change, many people don’t seem particularly bothered about it because they don’t see it as something new and terrible – because it isn’t, it’s just a relatively small extension of an ongoing process.
The further point specifically about ID cards is that carrying ID really isn’t a big deal – which I say speaking as someone who has lived and worked in places where carrying ID is mandatory. Most people already do it anyway, in the form of drivers licences, credit cards, donor cards, etc. Furthermore, most people are not going to be asked for it very often, and they know this, which again reduces objection.
EG
Euan, it is true that people already carry many cards. The point is that these cards are voluntary. You can choose to drive, you can choose to have a credit card, etc. ID cards will be compulsory and of course likely to be expensive.
I admit that my main objection to compulsory ID cards is one of principle. I don’t see why I should have to carry a card around to prove to some goon of a copper that I am who I say I am. Admittedly, principles mean little for most Britons, who would not realise a matter of principle if they were hit on the head with one.
Euan,
I can’t let you get away with this. You may be correct that the most common objection to ID cards from the general public is on the grounds of cost. However, the most determined opposition is from those that object on principle. The principle objection will surely rise hugely as people are compelled to attend centres to have their irises scanned (or whatever) and to prove who they are.
I object on principle to any ID card, but I object all the more to the type the government is proposing. Contrary to your assertion that people won’t be asked for it very often, the goverment has made it clear that it will be universally required to access all sorts of services (private as well as public) as it extends the state further into all our lives (which is its stated aim regardless of ID cards as various speeches by government ministers have explicitly said in the last couple of weeks). This will take it well beyond the tye of card used in other countries.
Objections will grow further as the public realise that the database isn’t secure (it can’t and won’t be) that it’s riddled with errors, and that the biometric linking to individuals is unreliable (as it will be – nobody has demonstrated a system which is much over 90% reliable even in tightly controlled trials). Once people start getting denied access to things because of all the errors and frauds that occur, opinion will change quickly. I suspect that it’ll change before the system is even introduced as people become better acquainted with the issues.
So it’s not just cost. Look what happened in Australia – the public were strongly in favour until they began to realise the implications.
Exactly.
Perfectly true. It’s determined and it’s on grounds of principle. Unfortunately, it’s also very few people.
That can change, but I’m not sanguine.
EG
Fair enough, but what’s your proposal for a replacement system?
EG
If I were to lose my vote due to getting ill, how will I be seen by my former equals? As a lesser human? It’s bad enough being disabled, and now you want to take away my vote? I treasure my vote and take it very seriously.
Whatever I propose on a better system of government will be ripped down by those who believe what we’ve got is the best of all possible worlds, so let me be completely barking here.
1) We aim to have a benign dicatorship, the head honcho chosen being selected only after intense scrutiny from a team fully qualified to assess mental stability, social- and emotional-intelligence, honesty, a sense of fair play and complete absence of indoctrination and definitely not suffering a rigid belief in any malcontents long since dead. An ability to adapt and be flexible would be good, too. Perhaps it goes without saying anyone seeking this position would probably be disbarred immediately as they are flawed by too much sense of self.
Candidates may be either sex, any sexual orientation, any colour, but probably not too religious, though a sense of ethical values would help. Liking the UK is important.
2) This person can then form a government on the strict understanding that people who earn the right to vote (decide among yourselves what this means) will check on their progress (referendum or votes) once every year.
3) Er, that’s it.
Like I said, barking. But fun.
I don’t think we have the best of all possible worlds, which perhaps separates me from the New Labour crowd. However, one of the things that separates me from the more ideological libertarian crowd is that I don’t think we can EVER have the best of all possible worlds. I don’t have a lot of time for ideology of any kind, and I have little respect for the intellectual indolence of those who consider that a simplistic solution is the answer to the world’s very complex problems – this applies equally to libertarians and Marxists.
It’s always struck me as odd that many of the former were once the latter, but there it is. Of course, once one thinks about it, it becomes clear that the attraction of simple ideology to the blinkered mind is not all that dependent on what the ideology actually is, more on the fact that it is just a simple ideology – appealing to those who may be intelligent but don’t have a particularly accurate view of humanity or its place in the world. But I digress.
The proposal for a benign dictator is not actually all that different from the current British situation. The power of the PM in exercising the royal prerogative is for most practical purposes absolute, and all he really needs to worry about is keeping enough of the plebeian tribunes on side in the Commons. Rather than annual plebiscites, we have one every four or five years. If you think people aren’t interested in voting now, trying making them do it every year and see what happens. I see, though, that people need to earn the right to vote in your scheme. I suspect in reality you expect this process of earning to produce mainly voters who happen to share your preconceptions – this is usually the implicit aim of franchise restriction.
Interestingly enough, annual elections have been considered before in the UK. The idea was floated about the time of the Protectorate, and re-surfaced with the Chartists in the 1840s. It was dismissed as impractical and unnecessary.
Less fun but probably more realistic would be a system of term limits and an elected second chamber with veto power running on a different electoral cycle than the main one.
EG
You have proven yet again that you do not know what you are talking about. No matter how many time your fallacy is pointed out to you, you keep criticising libertarianism on the basis of what you need it to be rather than what it actually is.
The driving force behind most libertarianism is the idea that because we will always live in a fallible world full of fallible (i.e. we will never be in the best of all possible worlds), that is why it is madness to give some people so much force backed political power over others. Libertarianism is the very antithesis of utopianism.
As I have asked many, many times before and no-one has deigned to answer – what IS libertarianism?
If you won’t define it – and every request for a definition is met with silence, refusal or evasion – then you will have to suffer others defining it for you based on what they perceive.
If you don’t like this, define it. Until such time, put up with others doing for you that which you are unwilling or unable to do for yourself. You cannot reasonably complain about people not knowing what your philosophy is if you refuse to say what it is, now can you?
EG
Libertarianism is probably many things to many people. For me it is the freedom to make meaningful changes.
State-organised monoliths may have an idealistic start but before long tend to exist solely to perpetuate their place and maintain the status-quo, whether it works or not. Restricting the liberty to change is thus woven into the fabric.
A libertarian is unlikely by nature of their belief structure to always agree with another libertarian’s view, but usually can agree on the fundamental need to question and argue for change if it is found to be needed.
Most of whom disagree with each other, judging by the published evidence all over the internet. It’s fascinating to note the Peoples’ Front of Judaea tendency of libertarians, who seem to spend more time, effort and venom attacking each other than any common enemy, not least perhaps because they cannot define such a common enemy, probably because they cannot define what it is they themselves are.
All of which essentially means there is no such defined thing as libertarianism. Given the shiftiness and evasion of many soi disant libertarians when called on the issue, I suspect this is probably true. It means, of course, that any charge of failing to understand what libertarianism is falls flat on its face and that Perry’s complaint is rather pointless.
One sometimes wonders why it is that libertarians seem so reluctant to define the credo to which they suppesdly subscribe. What are they trying to hide? A sinister plot, or just a lack of any substance beyond puerile petulance?
The idea of questioning and calling for change where necessary is hardly unique to libertarianism. I do it, and I’m not libertarian.
EG
Oh that is rich coming from you of all people. Asked and answered many times.
Your arrogence is exceeded only by your ignorance. I have explained the anti-utopian basis for libertarianism on several occasions and yet you keep coming up with the canard that libertarianism assumes people are rational or perfectable. You get perfectly good answers but because they do not fit the reply you want to get, you just act as if no one replied to your endlessly repetitive questions at all. That is why I have no hestation just dismissing you as an ass.
The question I actually asked was “what is libertarianism?” This is the one that never gets answered – I was even told that a definition would be counter-productive. Why is that? Why would it be counter-productive to explain to people what it is libertarians actually want? And why is it that some people seem to expect the luxury of being extremely (and suspiciously) evasive about what it is they actually propose and at the same time want to complain about people not understanding what they are proposing? Trying to hide something, or just don’t have any concrete proposals?
Why the evasion?
EG
I should perhaps add that all you’re saying here is that libertarianism is not Utopian. Fine, I could just about accept that IF you also said what it was.
I’m not so much interested in what libertarianism IS NOT, I’m interested in what it IS.
Because this isn’t defined, the odd economic theses, highly selective view of history and fundamentally inaccurate understanding of government and human nature that accompanies much of what describes itself as libertarianism inevitably leads to the conclusion that it is indeed a Utopian philosophy because these eccentric views are pretty much all that comprises a definition.
EG
If my vote is taken from me due to disability, is there any point in me protesting against ID cards etc, or will that voice be ignored too?
I dont care what name you call it. I just want to know why I cannot get incapacity Benefit or help paying my mortgage after working full-time and paying full NH stamp for 41 years.
I now exist on 80.15 per week. With a mortgage of 404.85. When my home gets taken away where do I go ???????