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Yesterday I went down to the library in my hometown of Kettering, Northamptonshire.
There was a big display with a lot of ‘politically correct’ language – all about ‘sustainable development’ and other such. But when I worked out what it was all about it turned out to be the council’s plan for the Kettering area.
Exactly how many new houses, business enterprises and jobs there were to be was laid out (a bit like Gosplan from the old Soviet Union). The fact that it is impossible for some ‘plan’ to calculate the ‘correct’ level of all these things (something that Ludwig Von Mises pointed out in 1920) was ignored.
Nor was the possibility that government (in this case local government) should not provide all the roads, drainage, and other such that such developments demand. Of course the only way to judge if someone really thinks that a development is viable is to see whether they are willing to pay for everything (roads, drainage… and the maintenance of such things) themselves – if they are not it is a con.
In short the old unholy alliance between private developers and government (i.e. taxpayer) subsidies…even the Soviets did not have that. All in contradiction to the promises that the town and county councillors got elected on (i.e. that they would oppose such ‘development’.
The level of ‘research’ and ‘knowledge’ that the council has is shown by the picture of the building they choose to illustrate their plans for the centre of Kettering (presently, years after the present administration came to power, the ‘one way’ and road blockage system is still driving customers to other towns and divides the town into two parts, north and south, that are virtually cut off from each other) – the picture was of a building, and not even a very good building, that is miles outside of the centre of Kettering in south Kettering (a few hundred yards from my home).
Almost needless to say the whole display included a lot of words about the ‘environment’ (the environment that the developments would be built on I suppose).
It is a rerun of the trash collection scam. Lots of different coloured waste bins and a collection (of one or more of the coloured bins) only once every two weeks, rather than every week for one bin – all in the name of the “environment” (although all the carefully separated, on the pain of punishment, trash is then mixed together again because the council has no way of disposing of it separately). The whole scam costs a fortune and is a health hazard due to trash rotting for two weeks in bins – or being spread about when they get knocked over.
If attacked on any of the above local councillors will just blame national or European Union regulations and they may well be right, but I suspect that it is not a matter of where the government plan comes from, it is a matter of it being a government plan that is the problem.
Meanwhile the councilors concern themselves with another project. After wasting large amounts of taxpayer’s money on (daft) changes to the Town Hall, they now plan to waste millions on building a new Town Hall, or whatever politically correct name they come up with for it, someone miles out of town…I suppose they want to hide somewhere isolated so that angry people can not find them or the local government officers.
I have not mentioned what political party controls Kettering town council and Northamptonshire county council – but it does not really matter. The ‘Chief Executive’ (what we used to call the Town Clerk) and his deputy chief executives and other senior local government officers control everything – and they do so on the basis of various local and national regulations and policies.
Local councilors cannot even oppose these people as any written or verbal counter attack could be seen as ‘bringing the council into disrepute’ by the Local Government Standards Board – this body has hit councilors in other places for daring to speak against the administrators.
This is what it is like living in a ‘planned society’ like Britain, people who have something to lose do not tend to speak out.
There has been a lot of loose talk that it does not much matter if the Democrats take the House of Representatives, the Senate or both.
“President Bush will still have the veto” and/or “the Democrats will not want to raise taxes, or do other bad things, because this will ruin their chances in 2008”.
This talk assumes that President Bush will somehow turn into Captain Veto if the Democrats win – an assumption for which there is no evidence in George Bush’s record. It also ignores the fact that many of the tax rate cuts that have been made are temporary – i.e. unless there is a vote to make the cuts permanent taxes will go up automatically.
Such hopeful talk also ignores the power of the media and of academia: The Democrats are already talking about increasing taxes on ‘the rich’ and the media and academia will present any tax increase as ‘only’ a tax increase on the rich.
The Democrats also have planned a set of new regulations (for example regulations designed to make unions stronger – and thus undermine American industry and increase unemployment). The media will present all such regulations as ‘fair and just’ and academics (such as the ‘economist’ Paul Krugman) will rush to agree – just as they will rush to justify any tax increase.
People who think that “well the Republicans have not been much good, and the Democrats will not be able to do much harm – so it does not matter if they take Congress” are deluding themselves.
Even the ‘likely voter’ defense may not save the Republicans. As many people are fired up to vote by the state of the war in Iraq, and many conservative and libertarian minded people are upset with Republican failure to control government spending (although nonmilitary spending growth has been much lower than it has been in Britain).
With the elections only a couple of weeks away America may well be sleep walking over a cliff.
For what a political party is supposed to be, one should turn to Edmund Burke (the man who is often cited as the founder of modern Conservatism), who produced the classic defence of political party – defending it from the charge that is was simply a ‘faction’, a despised term in the 18th century and before, of people out for power.
Edmund Burke argued that a political party, as opposed to a faction, was a group of people allied around a set of principles – i.e. they were interested in how government acted, not just in who got power.
Burke’s argument was made more credible by the fact that the leader of his own party (the Rockingham Whigs) was the second Marquis of Rockingham.
Rockingham was well known to be uninterested in the financial benefits of political power or influence, his being one of the richest men in the land may have aided him in his disinterest, as may have the fact that his wealth came from his unsubsidized landed estates, and the Marquis was well known to be uninterested in power for its own sake (he would much rather give up office and return to running his estates or just watching horse racing, than commit any dishonourable act).
Rockingham was no weakling or fool (contrary to what is sometimes said, I hold him to have come to his principles before he met Burke rather than Burke having imposed principles upon him – they shared principles, neither imposed principles on the other), but it was clear that whatever led this man to politics (indeed to be the leader of a party and twice Prime Minister) it was neither financial advantage or lust for office or power.
Nor was it some vague ‘desire to serve’. Rockingham was loyal to the King – but he would not take office other than on his own principles. The Rockingham Whigs held that the power of the King should be limited, but they (or rather Rockingham and Burke and some others) held that government itself, whether from the King or Parliament, should be limited. That there should not be wars for trading advantage (as the older Pitt was alleged to have supported) and that taxes, government spending and regulations should be kept as limited as possible, and there should be no special projects for interests in the land whether those interests were rich or poor.
Rockingham was not good at writing or clever talk, indeed he had the strange English vice of never wishing to seem more intelligent than anyone he was talking to, and not pointing out an error in what someone was saying if he thought that doing so would undermine them or make them sad, but Burke was a good talking and writing and took up the task of explaining the principles of the Rockingham Whigs.
Sadly Burke was mistaken in thinking that all the Rockingham Whigs shared the same principles and this was to be seen after Rockingham died in 1782.
It is often said that the party broke up over the French Revolution. With most of the party following Charles James Fox, but some (such as the Duke of Portland and Earl Fitzwilliam, eventually coming to side with Burke on the Revolution), however the strain was clear years before the French Revolution.
Pitt the Younger proposed free trade (more or less) between Britain and Ireland whilst the Rockingham Whigs (led by Fox) opposed his bill. BUT Burke, and those who thought like him, opposed it on the grounds that it included a tax on Ireland, whereas Fox opposed it on the grounds that he did not wish to allow Irish goods free access into Britain.
More broadly, Burke (and those who thought like him) defined freedom as limited government (freedom from government), whereas Fox (and his followers) defined freedom as the rule of Parliament (a rule in the interests of ‘the people’ of course)… freedom as a ‘free government’.
Whilst the goal was to limit the power of the King, or rather of ‘the Crown’ as it was the interests around the throne, not George III himself that were the threat, there was common ground – but over time the basic difference in principles made itself felt. The French Revolution (in Burke’s eyes unlimited state power, in Fox’s eyes a new people’s government freeing itself from the King and ruling in the general interest) was just the great issue that made the clash of principles obvious.
So what is this all got to do with the modern British ‘Conservative’ party? → Continue reading: Why the British ‘Conservative’ party is not a political party at all
It is hard for us (as libertarians) to understand just how radical even freezing government spending in real terms is. The UK Independence Party policy on government spending is, by modern standards, very radical [pdf document].
The UK Independence Party will tomorrow (3rd October) announce a 33 per cent flat rate income tax for all, including National Insurance contributions, as part of a sweeping tax policy review. The review includes increasing the level that can be earned free of tax to £9,000, scrapping the loathed inheritance tax altogether and reducing Capital Gains to 33 per cent. Party Leader, Nigel Farage MEP, will throw a challenge to Tory Leader David Cameron by setting a clear tax cutting agenda that will attract many members of the Conservative Party.
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UKIP Economic spokesman, John Whittaker MEP, said: “The country does not accept the argument that improvements in ‘front line’ public services require ever-increasing Government expenditure. Huge sums of money have been poured in but have not improved services proportionately to the amount taxpayers have paid and have a right to expect
The last time there was anything like this was 1976-1977 when, under IMF orders, the brakes were put on UK government spending. The situation by the time of the next General Election will be similar (vast government spending and an exploding (13.7% ‘broad money’ growth at the moment) money supply, or in ‘modern’ language an ‘expansive fiscal and monetary policy’, having undermined the economy) – so the UKIP is being farsighted. Clearly they think that economic breakdown can still be avoided (and in technical terms they are correct – although the culture may have decayed to such a point that avoiding collapse is not ‘practical politics’).
As for unifying the income tax and ‘national insurance’ systems – Australia and New Zealand did this long ago. National Insurance is a tax, it is not a ‘contribution’.
A flat rate income tax makes good administrative sense and getting rid of the top rates of income tax would indeed stimulate the economy and benefit everyone bar tax lawyers. Getting some poor people out of the tax system would not boost revenue – but it is a political price one has to pay for getting rid of the 40% rate. Of course I would like to see a lower overall rate than 33% – but one must remember that there would be no ‘national insurance’ tax anymore. Also, if the poor no longer paid income tax, there would be no excuse for Mr Brown’s wildly complex and expensive ‘tax credits’.
Getting rid of the inheritance tax is a logical move already done in Canada and other nations. Inheritance tax just encourages people to spend their capital (and then live off the state) – rather than invest for the long term in the hope that their children will see the benefit.
It is sad that the absurd Capital Gains Tax is to stay – cutting it is good, but it is a mad (and hard to administer) tax that causes great harm.
Converting the wildly complicated and open to fraud VAT into a sales tax is a good idea (and they are correct that this is not lawful under EU law). However, making the new sales tax a local tax would mean an end to the Council Tax (which would be popular) and one could get rid of all national government subsidies to local government as well (which would allow a reduction in the combined income and social security tax).
Overall a ‘good as far as it goes package’ – certainly vastly better than the increasingly ironically named ‘Conservatives’ whose shadow Chancellor said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it was “unlikely” that he would put UP taxes… but would consider it.
The media are going all out to boost Mr David Cameron (the leader of the British Conservative party). The Daily Telegraph newspaper has a front page story about how people are paying tens of thousands of Pounds to have lunch with Mr Cameron or one of his associates and how this proves that Conservatives are becoming popular (this is in the face of a declining party membership, only a quarter of whom bother to vote on the meaningless documents that are put in front of them, and opinion polls that state that about 38% intend to vote Conservative – out of the just over half of British voters who are likely to vote at all).
The Economist runs an editorial about how Mr Cameron should strip local Conservative members of what little choice they have left in choosing candidates, and how he should give up even his token policy of removing Conservatives from the ultra pro-EU European People’s Party group in the ‘European Parliament’ and totally submit to the EU in all things – oh sorry, how Mr Cameron should seek ‘influencei in the EU.
The Spectator magazine has, as its cover, a drawing of Sentator John McCain crowning Mr Cameron as King (which might interest the Queen) and, as its main story, how Senator (death-to-the-First-Amendment aka ‘Campaign Finance Reform’) McCain supports Mr Cameron.
And (of course) the BBC is still boosting Mr Cameron at every opportunity. Today Mr Cameron was given air time to explain that members of Parliament should be stripped of the power to set their own pay, and how elected governments should be stripped of power to give out honours (all those CBEs, OBEs, Kighthoods and even membership of the House of Lords) – both tasks should be done (according to Mr Cameron) outside of politics (i.e. most likely by the ‘great and the good’ who would, no doubt, give MPs even more money and make sure that no non-statist ever got an honour of any kind – certainly it would be an end to the chances of those free market types that Mrs Thatcher sometimes put into the House of Lords).
Whilst no fan of MPs getting paid lots of money (I would have been against the 1911 move to pay them at all) and no fan of how governments (especially the government led by Mr Blair) are alleged to sell honours in return for campaign money – I do find it ironic that Mr Cameron was flanked by ‘Ken’ Clarke when he launched his attack on democratically elected people deciding such things. Mr Clarke is Mr Cameron’s man in charge of producing policies to make democracy stronger and (especially) to restore power to the House of Commons.
This is ironic in its self – as Mr Clarke has a fanatical hatred of the powers of the House of Commons (of which he is a member) and wishes as much power as possible to go to the European Union.
But then Mr Clarke has just been put in charge (by Mr Cameron) of finding ways of carrying out the plan to strip elected people of both responsibility for the pay of MPs and for the honours system.
And Mr Cameron himself (with the strong support of the Economist) is busy destroying (in the name of democracy) what little democracy there is in the Conservative party and has already failed to carry out his leadership election promise to pull out Conservative members of the European Union Parliament out of the (pro-EU and anti-British House of Commons) European People’s Party group.
I can only conclude that Mr Cameron has no sense of irony.
In response of Dale Amon’s posts (Why I am voting for Republicans this year), I made the comment that if the Republican candidate for Governor was another Taft family person (or a friend of these statists – however good Robert Taft may have been before his death in 1953) then it would be better to vote Libertarian for Governor (even though it would let the tax-and-spend Democrats in) – in order to send the tax-and-spend Ohio Republican party a message.
I had not even bothered to check to see who the Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio was (in spite of being from Kettering England – the ‘sister city’ of Kettering Ohio).
The candidate is Ken Blackwell – an African American who has been a harsh critic, for many years, of the tax and spend policies that have turned Ohio into the third highest taxed State in the nation. Mr Blackwell favours tax reduction and strict control of government spending.
I would like to apologize for my ignorance.
“Undermine human dignity” – this is the sort of language that the Geneva Convention is written in. Very noble to want to stop such things no doubt, but what do the words actually mean? Is it undermining human dignity to make enemy captives dress in prison uniforms? Some of the IRA prisoners in Ulster certainly thought so – and starved themselves to death to make their point.
How about being questioned by a women – Islamic prisoners may well hold that to be undermining their dignity. What is a tough interrogation and what is torture? Should the line be left vague (perhaps to be decided by some international “court” hearing a case against American interrogators later) or should the line be set down clearly in law in advance?
If the line should be explained, in law, in advance – what words should be used? President Bush suggests using the words already used in the anti-torture statute passed by Congress last year. Those words were thought up by Senator John McCain and the opposition to using these words (indeed any words) to define what the vague Geneva Convention means is being led by – Senator John McCain.
The above is what is going in Washington DC in relation to the Geneva Convention. But you are not likely to see such a report on any British television station, or hear on any British radio station or read it in any British newspaper (no matter how ‘conservative’), as far as the British media are concerned President Bush is a beast (as well as a moron) who wants to torture people and hates the Geneva Convention, and Senator McCain is a saint.
As for the arguments of Senator McCain and company – they are uniformly worthless.
“President Bush wants to modify the Geneva Convention” – no he does not, he wants to define what its vague words mean in terms of law.
“The United States does not define treaties in terms of its laws” – wrong, it has done so many times.
“The world will hate us if we do this” – the “world” (i.e. the leftist establishment) has hated the United States since President Truman decided to be Joe Stalin’s door mat. And this is not going to change – no matter what the United States does or does not do.
“If we do this American prisoners will be treated badly by their captors” – American prisoners will be tortured and killed regardless of whether Islamic terrorists are put into orange jumpsuits or whatever else is done. The idea that by being nice to the Islamic terrorists (or whoever) they will be influenced to be nice to Americans is crap.
If Americans do not wish to be tortured or killed they had better avoid being captured, nothing that America does or does not do will influence their treatment in any way.
Of course, you are not likely to see, hear or read this in the British media either.
Mr H. Benn (the ‘Overseas Development’ minister) has announced that the British government will withhold £50 million (US$ 94 million) of taxpayers money that it was to pay to the World Bank to be lent out to ‘Third World’ governments.
Mr Benn said this was protest against the World Bank’s policy of demanding free trade and privatization in return for loans. Actually the World Bank does not do that very much any more. These days it normally just demands that a loan (for example) for education actually be spent on education – rather than go in corruption.
However, I still think the government was right to withhold the money (and not because I am against free trade or privatization – or think that the same economic principles can produce good results in one country and bad results in another, as a weird editorial in the Daily Telegraph claimed), but because I do not believe that taxpayers money should be taken by the government and given to the World Bank.
The World Bank should not exist (and nor should the IMF). If ‘Third World’ governments want state education (or some other folly) they should pay for it themselves – as they will have to after the loan money runs out anyway. All the loan achieves is to give them a debt to pay back on top of the future state education (or whatever) bill.
Presenter of Seven Man Made Wonders on BBC 2 television on Thursday 14th of September.
“After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the old Pagan Roman ways were pitted against the new Christian ways of the invading Angles and Saxons”.
Interesting to see licence fee (i.e. the BBC tax) money going on ‘educational’ stuff like this. I suppose they never heard of the Emperor Constantine.
Recently the Democrat Mayor of Chicago (Richard Daley) vetoed the higher minimum wage law proposed by the (Democrat) city council and they have failed to overturn his veto.
The proposal was quite wrong headed, both because it discriminated against large employers (such as Walmart) who were the only employers who were to pay the new ‘living wage’, and on the general grounds that (all other factors being equal) increases in minimum wage law (over the amount of money already being paid) levels cost jobs (in accordance with the law of demand).
However, the Democrats are making great play in the mid-term elections with both Walmart bashing and with minimum wage level law increases generally (if they get their way, most States will have higher minimum wage level laws than the Federal level) and for the best known Democrat Mayor in the country to veto such an increase (and an increase linked to Walmart bashing) both points to the absurdity of Democrat policies and shows the Democrats to be disunited as well.
Meanwhile in California the Democrats are pressing for universal government health-care (basically a version of the plan Mrs Clinton proposed in the early 1990’s) and the Republican Governor is pledged to veto the proposal.
This may seem to be a winner for the Democrats, but people who support universal government health-care (with all the increase in taxes, health rationing and the decline in the quality of health care that it means) would vote Democrat anyway. Whereas many Republicans were considering not voting for ‘Arnie’ on the grounds of his wild spending on building projects. The Democrats in California have given the Republicans (and independents and moderate Democrats) a reason to turn out and vote – vote against the Democrats.
Also by beating the drum for more government health care (on top of Medicare, Medicaid, and all the rest of it) the Democrats risk turning attention to places where it has already been tried. Such as Louisiana (where the long established system of government hospitals are a terrible mess) or Tennessee where even the Democratic party Governor has admitted that ‘TennCare’ did not turn out too well.
If they go on like this the Democrats could well save the Republican House of Representatives. Otherwise the Republicans’ wild spending (on the ‘entitlement programs’ and other such) might well have led to many pro-liberty voters staying at home (giving the Democrats the House, if not the Senate).
For some weeks Mr. Cameron’s friends in the media (such as the Telegraph group writer and editor of the Specator, Matthew d’Anconia) have been pointing to an upcoming speech that David Cameron was to make. This speech was intended to show what sort of politician Mr Cameron is, to define him – just as the first major foreign policy speech Mrs Thatcher made defined her (earning her the name the ‘Iron Lady’ from the Soviets – what was intended as an insult became a honoured name).
The speech was finally made on September 11th – on the day that the Iron Lady herself stood shoulder to shoulder with the Vice President in the United States (old, betrayed, hit by several strokes, the Lady still stood and walked ramrod straight – held up by courage alone).
Mr Cameron duly denounced anti-Americanism – it was “cowardice”, but then he said Britain must not be “slavish” in any alliance with the United States, and the American leadership was guilty of”‘sound bites”, lacked “humility” and that the American division of things into good and evil was “unrealistic and simplistic” (and so on and so on).
Leaving aside the point that when someone says that they are beyond good and evil, light and dark, (they are more sophisticated than old fashioned ideas of “right” and “wrong”) it tends to mean that they are evil, it was irritating to hear of Mr Cameron first denouncing anti-Americanism and then indulging in exactly that.
Mr Cameron is free to hold any opinion he wishes, even though I might suspect that his Yank bashing was less a matter of principle than an effort to get a favourable editorial in the Daily Mail (on the correct calculation that this newspaper hates the United States even more than it hates him, although some Daily Mail people such as Richard Littlejohn clearly despise what Mr Cameron said yesterday).
However, it is still unclear what Mr Cameron’s opinion actually is – for whilst he attacked the United States he did not say “the Iraq war is wrong”. David Cameron tried to have his cake and eat it as well, and thus playing to both pro and anti war people in his party.
Now being undecided about the Iraq war is not a crime and opposing the Iraq war is not a crime – I myself wrote against the idea of war, although I believed (and still believe) that once the war had started it must be carried on to victory.
I am not attacking Mr Cameron’s right to have an opinion, or his lack of clarity about what his opinion is – it is not even the general patronising tone of his abuse of the leadership of the United States that I object to. It is the date of his speech that is astonishing.
The anniversary of 9/11 is not the time to make this type of speech (far less to bill the speech as some equivalent of the ‘Iron Lady’ speech). If Mr Cameron really does not understand this it shows that just being born into a wealthy family and going to Eton and Oxford do not make a man a gentleman.
Whilst the media is interested in the Labour leadership struggle (the issue of when statist Blair is going and whether he is going to be replaced by statist Brown or statist Reid or statist someone else), my interest has been directed towards the latest antics of the ruling group within the Conservative party.
A couple of days ago some of Mr David Cameron’s senior people (Oliver Letwin, David W. and so on) came out with a ‘turning point’ for the Conservative party, a major policy matter. This was to state that the Conservative party would commit itself to much more taxpayer’s money for the ‘public services’ (i.e. the government education, health and welfare programmes). The “traditional Conservative hostility” to such things was wrong (although the idea that the Mrs Thatcher cut government spending is a myth – in reality its growth was just restrained, but even that is now considered a crime against humanity). Indeed it is “part of being human” to support government spending increases without limit – so anti-government types may look human, but we are really not human at all. Mr Cameron himself took time out from his trip to India to denounce the idea of tax cuts in an interview with BBC radio.
Of course Mr Cameron may be in India to learn how to create an even bigger budget deficit than Britain already has (rather than just go and try and get some reflected glory from visiting the tomb of Gandhi – much in the way as he tried to get some reflected glory from the Nelson Mandela stunt last month), but it would be nice if he noted that India has far lower taxes than Britain has (total taxes – as a percentage of the economy) which is one of the basic reasons that its economic growth is faster.
If India tried to have the level of government ‘public services’ spending that Mr Cameron and his people would suggest (even as a percentage of the economy) its government deficit would be wildly greater than it already is – and the economy would collapse (which, given how poor many Indians already are, would mean starvation).
But then Mr Cameron does not want economic growth, he wants economic “stability” – but then he does want economic growth because he wants to “share the proceeds” of it, in order to fight “social injustices” and support the cause of “social justice”. Not just in Britain – but by providing government aid to all the poor countries of the world (far more than this mean Labour government is giving). → Continue reading: Cameron’s ‘Conservatives’ – the madness continues
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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