“What I am observing is that, contrary to common reputation, the UK political system is turning out to be more gridlocked than the American system. One problem is that governments can very easily lose their majorities and fall, as witnessed by the quick succession of three British prime ministers, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and now Rishi Sunak. To provide a simple example, it has been difficult for any of those governments to legalize fracking (Johnson did not, Truss made gestures in that direction, Sunak has claimed he will not). If nothing else, fracking would disrupt the rural and suburban environments of Tory voters, and endanger the stability of a Conservative government. The end result is that Britain is less energy-independent, more budget constrained and as a result more constrained in what it can do politically.”
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Samizdata quote of the dayDecember 5th, 2022 |
 19 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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” If nothing else, fracking would disrupt the rural and suburban environments of Tory voters, and endanger the stability of a Conservative government. ”
This is just absolute tosh. Bollocks. Drivel. Rubbish.
The fact that this can be written with a straight face _IS_ the problem.
“If nothing else, fracking and the inevitable failure of government, law enforcement and the legal system to deal swiftly and effectively with the inevitable demonstrations would disrupt the rural and suburban environments of Tory voters, and endanger the stability of a Conservative government”.
John,
Quite so, but it’s the inevitable failure of Govt etc that is the problem – as it is always and everywhere – not the proximate cause of fracking…
The fact that this can be written with a straight face _IS_ the problem.
Well I have met a few Tories who bleat about fracking, building things and the like, and the NIMBY impulse is strong. A by-election, held last summer in Boris Johnson period of government, was so I heard a disaster for the Tories because LibDems promised to block housing development. And a lot of Tories in the South tend, from my experience as a journalist, to be fierce opponents of development that they think might damage the value of their homes. A specific example is the endless delays to a third runway at Heathrow. Look at how Zac Goldsmith, Boris Johnson and other Tories in constituencies on the flightpath area near Windsor, Richmond and the like opposed it. The same mindset applies to fracking.
I guess if you call yourself the “Pedant General” you are inviting trouble if you haven’t marshalled your own arguments very well and just scoff at what Mr Cowen has written. You have, I am afraid, written “tosh, drivel and bollocks”.
Have a pedantic rest of the week!
A gas well has been sunk close to the village where I live in East Yorkshire, no fracking involved as far as I’m aware. I think that the swampy camp was probably more disruptive than any industrial activity that went on. I just can’t get inside the heads of the imbeciles who stuck posters in their front gardens bearing the legend “Green Fields Not Gas Fields”, all of whom have a gas meter on the front of their houses.
Complete twaddle.
The government has not lost it’s majority as would be easily proven by any confidence vote (or contrariwise the defeat of any no confidence motion).
BoJo was ousted by chancers who thought they could replace him with that WEF tainted snake Rishi Sunak. Instead Rishi got rejected by the Tory party membership at large, resulting in Liz Truss becoming party leader and PM.
Said chancers then staged a coup d’etat to replace Liz Truss with WEF tainted snake Rishi Sunak.
The electorates views on this are pretty clear from every poll since the summer and project that the Tories will likely be ousted at the next election, bar some miracle.
Good Riddance to bad rubbish as well, but god help the country under yet another Labour government.
Well yes and… no. Clearly the two people chosen to be PM by the party membership (Johnson and then Truss) did not have a “majority” within their own Parliamentary party. And given we have Sunak & Hunt running the government, neither of whom most of the party membership wanted, who exactly has a “majority”? And does it even matter now that we have a Blue Blairite government?
Birth of a conspiracy theory. When I was a lad I saw on tv a Labour minister (possibly George Brown) being asked why the government had not kept all its manifesto promises. The reply was something like “if the public only realized how little power the government has they would be outraged.” My ears perked up at this as I expected the interviewer to follow that up, but to my surprise he changed the subject. Curious and curiouser.
I have since then watched the government closely to see if they are actually making decisions or justifying someone else’s. My conclusion is usually the latter. They have been told not to frack and so they are not fracking. This is not a decision make by the elected government of the UK after careful consideration of the pros and cons.
Perry: Well yes and… no. Clearly the two people chosen to be PM by the party membership (Johnson and then Truss) did not have a “majority” within their own Parliamentary party. And given we have Sunak & Hunt running the government, neither of whom most of the party membership wanted, who exactly has a “majority”? And does it even matter now that we have a Blue Blairite government?
Exactly. Given the way that the Tory Party works (or doesn’t), the 80-seat majority means little. The fall of Truss, which smelled like a coup rather than anything specifically democratic, is proof of this point.
But wasn’t the American system designed with grid-lock in mind? Isn’t that supposed to be a good feature?
The most important question in UK politics is, and has been for some time, ‘Who’s in Charge?’
You’ll never see it asked in a newspaper or on the TV. There they are content to play at Labour vs Tories within a narrow set of constraints that totally precludes the possibility of getting to some sort of revelations of wider issues. Who says we can’t do fracking? Who says we must align corporation tax or immigration policy with the recommendations of international bodies we didn’t choose and can’t get rid of?
I think that when the American system was designed, the idea was that the federal government would do very little indeed. Regulate trade between the states, pay for a navy, and not much more. Most government would be done at the state level. That would have been seen as the natural level for most government. That is why the senate was appointed by the states, not elected.
The sort of federal government which has grown up since the New Deal would have been an anathema to the Founding Fathers. The American Constitution was designed for a country which has long since ceased to exist.
The Pedant-General is correct, fracking is no more intrusive than drilling. I live in Alberta Canada where we have successfully fracked over 250,000 wells with no ill effects of which I am aware.
@Stonyground: There is a local group here in Calgary, Canada that is discussing the idea of going to the homes of known leftists and enviro-whackjobs and turning off their gas meters on a cold day. That’s easy to do here, it needs only an adjustable wrench or heavy duty pliers. It’s likewise easy to find the enviro-whackjobs around here as they identify themselves with lawn and fence signs espousing ideas and groups that want to ban all forms of hydrocarbon.
I think it’s a bad idea and probably a criminal offence, but … tempting.
It was -30C here overnight.
I believe that both the American and the British political systems are dysfunctional – just look at the national debt.
The national debt in both countries is larger than the entire economy – and the Welfare States of both countries (oh yes – American is a Welfare State to, it has been since the late 1960s, it is just an incredibly incompetent Welfare State where a fortune is spent but a lot of very poor people get very little in terms of health care, income, housing and so on – even in places, such as New York and California where government spending is just as high as it is in many European nations).
In Britain the political parties largely follow a script written for them by officials and “experts” – there are differences between the political parties, but on the basic matter of whether the state should expand in terms of government spending and regulations – “of course it should” is the de facto position of ALL the political parties in the United Kingdom Parliament.
In the United States – the Federal Government is an abomination, it really is, It is utterly corrupt, and totally out of control – the people have very, if any, influence over it. The more the establishment screams about “democracy” the clearer it is that democracy is dying, if not already dead – killed by the very establishment that claims to be “protecting it” or “fortifying it” (by the way “fortify” is establishmentese for “rig” in relation to elections). And RINOs are also guilty – one does not get a 31 Trillion Dollar national debt, by just Democrats doing bad things.
At the State level – some States are in a, relatively, sound position (Florida is the example the establishment Republicans point to – and, for once, they are telling the truth). But some States, such as New York or California (or New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut – yes once conservative Connecticut, if Roger Sherman returned to this Earth he would just drop dead again as soon as he looked at the Connecticut budget books) are much like the Federal Government – they are abominations.
The Corporations?
I spent most of life defending “Big Business” – but it is not horribly obvious that they are just welfare recipients in thousand Dollar suits, depended on the drip feed of cheap money from the Central Banks.
“Consumer Sovereignty” – sadly the “Woke” Corporations do not care about providing quality products at affordable prices, they care about the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion agenda as part of the Social and Environmental Governance agenda.
Good books are still written – but you will not find them in the shops, and good films are still made – but you will not find them in the cinemas (movie theatres). What you will find is “Woke” drivel (such as “The Light Within Us” supposedly written by Michelle Obama and in a supermarket near you) – the cultural aspect of Agenda 2030 must be followed.
Not only does the flow of Credit Money to the Woke Corporations depend upon it – but they are run by “educated” people, who like doing this anyway.
“Consumer Sovereignty” – tell that to BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard – who, between them, control investments of over 20 Trillion (Trillion) Dollar. They matter – customers do not matter. At least not in the short term – and Corporate managers tend to think short term.
The free market, as understood by Adam Smith or Milton Friedman, no longer exists. It may come back – and come back with a vengeance (let us hope so), but it is not with us in the United Kingdom or the United States at the moment.
“The markets broke Liz Truss over tax cuts” – but “the markets” never care about wild government spending, because “the markets” are now a handful of vast Woke corporate entities (banks and other such) backed by the Credit Money of the central banks.
Jonathan,
“I guess if you call yourself the “Pedant General” you are inviting trouble if you haven’t marshalled your own arguments very well and just scoff at what Mr Cowen has written. You have, I am afraid, written “tosh, drivel and bollocks”.”
This is, I concede happily, entirely fair.
What I was trying to say, but failed to make clear enough, is that the generally held view that fracking is terrible and disruptive is utter bollocks.
I quoted the specific phrase in question: “fracking would disrupt the rural and suburban environments of Tory voters”.
This is – I will say it again – utter bollocks. *Fracking* will do no such thing. The morons might, but that’s morons, not fracking. This argument needs to be made frequently and forcefully.
In the United States, unlike many other countries, elections still, sometimes, matter – as candidates for election in the United States, may (sometimes) not follow the line of the officials, “experts” and the “Woke” corporations.
This is why it is sometimes (sometimes) “necessary” (from the point of view of the Corporate State) to rig elections in the United States – but it is not “necessary” to rig elections in, say, the Netherlands or the United Kingdom.
Candidates for election in the United States who find themselves cheated (sometimes blatantly cheated) should, in a way, feel flattered – because it means that powerful interests regard them as a threat, as someone who might NOT follow the line of the officials and “experts” – on de facto Climate Lockdowns, and so on.
And to candidates angry that they have been cheated – would you rather that they had put you in prison on false charges? Or would you rather they had ordered your murder?
Cheating you of election is a relatively (relatively) moderate move by the establishment.
And it is still possible for such candidates to win – if they have a truly massive wave of votes (a real landslide) behind them. They need to get outside the “margin of cheating”.
In 2024 the establishment will see the economy and society collapsing around them – their own families (in spite of their wealth) may well be in danger in the conditions of the collapsing society. So it is quite possible that they may not even try and rig the elections – as the establishment themselves will see the graphic failure of their financial and monetary system.
“No Paul – they will just impose something even more extreme, such as totalitarian digital currency”.
It is to be hoped that they do NOT go down that road – that they will come to understand that such a move will lead to an even worse situation, including a worse situation for themselves (yes – themselves).
As for the specific example given in the post – no the failure to legalise “fracking” is not because of “Conservative voters”.
Tylor Cowen seems to be writing under the impression that elected governments make policy in order to please the people who vote for the party in office.
In 2022 such an idea is totally misplaced – government policy is, generally, made to be in line with various “Woke” causes (such as “Net Zero”), not by elected politicians to please the people who vote for them.
Mr Cowen does not appear to understand the modern political system.
“Or would you rather they had ordered your murder?”
The aura of respectability is important to the cheaters. They know they would generate real, visible, resistance if they were to go down this road and that’s a genuinely credible thing in the US (as a direct result of 2A) in a way that is, I rather fear, much less true on this side of the pond.
On reading the article – it appears that Tyler Cowen thinks Prime Minister Truss was removed because of concerns over the “budget deficit”.
This is a touchingly innocent view of British politics – with no connection to reality.
“The markets” (i.e. a handful of vast corporate entities backed by the Credit Money of the Bank of England and the other Central Banks around the world) do not care about the wild government spending that is the real cause of the deficit – the complaints about tax cuts were in defence of an ideological (not economic) objective, an international tax cartel.
This view of politics, basically “the voters think X and the politicians do X in order to get their votes” may have been true at one time in the United Kingdom – but it is certainly is not now.
Tyler Cowen how many Conservative voters do you think support the highest taxes in peacetime history?
Not many Mr Cowen, not many.
Your view of the British political system is wrong Sir – it is not about elected politicians making policies in order to get votes.
You might as well say that Conservative voters support “Open Borders” – the vast influx of illegal migrants, they do not Mr Cowen.
Or that Conservative voters support the disruption of the roads by “Just Stop Oil” – they do not Mr Cowen.
The policies of the vast government machine, for example the police (hello “College of Policing” and the various other “training” bodies) and “Border Force”, and not made by elected politicians to gain votes.
The idea that “the voters think X and they elect politicians to carry out these policies” is hopelessly out of date, at least in the United Kingdom.
Policy is often made by “experts” and by officials and the courts (yes the courts) in line with various international agendas.
In theory Parliament could abolish all the Quangos and withdraw from all the international agreements – but watching Parliament today, as they cheered the Prime Minister say the Covid injections were “safe and effective” in reply to a Conservative Member of Parliament who told him of some of the harm the injections have done, I have very little hope that Parliament will free itself from the international establishment agenda. In theory power is with Parliament – in practice power is elsewhere.
This may not be true in some American States – but they have not “developed” so far as we have.