CentreRight

Who said this?

“Governments across the world have put into practice the principles of monetary discipline. The result is a world economy more stable than for a generation.”

Answer; David Cameron, September 2007.

Good spot by Fraser Nelson, News of the World.

Why I voted against the Tory whip - and partial privatisation of the Royal Mail - this week

By Daniel Kawczynski MP.

I know that in 2005, when I was elected as MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, many people in the constituency voted for my party ticket rather than for me as an individual.  I continue to be very aware of this fact.  I am also in the fortunate position of agreeing, in a pragmatic and ideological sense, with the Conservative leadership on both the great issues of the day and the long-standing policies of our party.

That is why, up to this point, I have so faithfully followed my party line on each and every one of the issues upon which I have spoken and voted in Parliament.  However, this week, for the first time in my Parliamentary career, I voted against the Conservative whip.  I had no choice, for my conscience will not let me support the privatisation – whether in part or whole – of the Royal Mail.

Over the last four years, I have built up contacts, friendships and a broad base of understanding within our local Royal Mail sorting office.  It is a tight, efficient and well-run unit, where day in, day out over 800 Royal Mail employees work hard to provide a communications link with the most remote parts of the constituency, and indeed much of the rest of the UK.  Indeed, this sorting office has responsibility for a truly enormous area, stretching into Wales as well as covering Shropshire.  The work these people do is of extraordinary benefit to the community and wider economy.

Against this background, I could do nothing else but give my commitment to the workers of the Shrewsbury sorting office that I would oppose privatisation of the Royal Mail, in any form.  They have convinced me that privatisation is not the solution to dealing with the problems Royal Mail is facing.  That is why I had to keep that promise and vote accordingly in the House of Commons on Wednesday night.

The S Word

Where’s Mandy, asks Iain Dale? Easy. He’s shut away in Downing Street working on the most challenging, demanding important task he has ever had to do. Teaching Gordon to say the S-word. The Obama disc may or may not have been ordered, who cares? The point is that Gordon needs to do it.

It’s not difficult to imagine. Every parent has had to teach their child how to say sorry and why it’s important. We’re used to all the excuses, evasions and dissembling - Wasn’t me! He did it! She did it! Don’t know who did it, it just wasn’t me! – the running away and hiding, the volcanic tantrums, the toy-throwing, anything rather face up to what they have done and say sorry. We’ve all explained slowly and patiently how it’s really important to take responsibility for what you’ve done and accept the consequences, how it makes people even crosser with you if you won’t admit it than they were about what you did in the first place, how if you can say sorry straightaway and mean it people will respect that, how you’ll feel better when you’ve done it. And then when they force out a muttered, eyes-averted “sorry”, making sure they identify precisely what it is they are sorry for, to make sure they mean it, rather than simply saying sorry to get you off their back. And reminding them that a genuine sorry needs to be marked by a change of behaviour not carrying on regardless.

We’ve been there Peter. It’s a necessary life-skill to impart. It's part of becoming a grown-up. And some people find it very, very hard. But as you’re finding out, rearing our children right is the hardest and most important thing we’ll ever have to do.

Gordon is beginning to remind me in some respects of Otto in A Fish Called Wanda. Otto thought he was a world-beater, hated being called stupid, blamed other people for everything, and was awed by his own intellect. But he lost the money, lost the girl, and ended up getting steam-rollered.

There’s a wonderful scene when Wanda tells him why he needs to say sorry. Sadly it’s not all on YouTube, but for some weekend light relief, there’s a clip at the end of this post of what happens immediately beforehand. If anyone can load up the whole scene and let me know, I’ll embed it. If (which it might be) imagining Kevin Kline as Gordon and Jamie-Lee Curtis as "Manda" isn’t too much of a stretch, the scene, with a few minor adjustments, might go like this:

Gordon: Don't call me stupid.

Manda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?

Gordon: Apes don't read economics.

Manda: Yes, they do, Gordon. They just don't understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Milton Keynes is not an economic advisory council. You didn’t abolish Boom and Bust. If you can’t pay your debts you don’t borrow more. Those are all mistakes, Gordon. I looked up your polling. Now... you have just destroyed the one thing that could keep you in power, that made the country rich. So what are you gonna do about it, huh? What would an intellectual do? What would Obama do?

Gordon: Apol...

Manda: Pardon me?

Gordon: Apolo...

Manda: What?

Gordon: Apologise!

Manda: Right!

Gordon: I'm sorry.

Manda: No. Not to me, to the voters. And make it good, or we're dead.

Gordon: Oh, I'm so very, very, very, very s... I'm s... I'm very, very s... I'm so very s... Very, very, very s... Very, very...

Crunched journalists and the uncrunched public sector

Courtesy of MediaGuardian's indispensable Twitter feed I learn this:

• Pay freeze at The Guardian Media Group;
• Hundreds of job cuts at ITV;
• Strike likely at Morning Star over pay... and at the Financial Times;
• Redundancies loom at Teletext...

I could go on.  It's an unhappy read.

The crunch facing the media (BBC largely excepted) makes me wonder if the people who bring us the news will be open to quite strong opinions on the need for the public sector to 'share the pain of recession'?

Benedict Brogan is returning to the Telegraph

I wouldn't usually comment on moves within the media here, but today brings an announcement that ought to be of interest to all followers of politics: Benedict Brogan, political editor of the Daily Mail since 2005, is returning to the Daily Telegraph as Chief Political Commentator and an Assistant Editor.

I first got to know Ben during my time at the BBC at the beginning of the decade when he was a political correspondent at the Telegraph, meaning that we were colleagues when I joined the paper in 2003.

Astute, well-connected and respected in equal measures, the Telegraph has done well to persuade him to return. His blog on the Daily Mail site is one of the best in Westminster and he will continue blogging at the Telegraph - as well as writing a weekly column for the paper.

I would venture that the Telegraph's decision to lure him back to its fold indicates a desire on the paper's part to be more fully prepared for the eventuality of a Cameron Government, on which his insights will be extremely valuable. He will also be the umpteenth member of staff from Associated to have been persuaded to move to Telegraph Towers over the last couple of years, with traffic between the two stables having been remarkably heavy over that period.

Is there an international development "industry"?

There's an interesting post today from my friend Ben Harnwell on his insightful new Brussels Dispatch blog.

Reading his piece, it occurs to me that the huge army that exists to regulate international development would be out of their collective 'jobs' were the poor to actually become rich: their ideal world would be one in which increasing amounts of money needed to be regulated and disbursed - whilst the poor moved only incrementally forward in prosperity. Not too much to obviate the need for international support - but not too slow to fundamentally discredit the machinery.

Do take a look.

The wicked principle that "the welfare of the child is paramount"

The basic legal principle in all public and private proceedings concerning children is that the welfare of the child is paramount.  This principle is set out in in 1(1) of the Children Act 1989

When a court determines any question with respect to—
(a) the upbringing of a child; or
(b) the administration of a child’s property or the application of any income arising from it,
the child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration.

This is the key thing to understand when considering cases such as that Iain Dale highlighted this morning: in which a couple were accused of child abuse, their children were taken from them, the allegations were (after a couple years) found likely to be false (in 2007), but in the interim their children had been adopted (in 2005).  The case is now in the news because a court has ruled that the adoption cannot be overturned even though the court accepted that the parents may have suffered from a miscarriage of justice.

Geert Wilders refused entry at Heathrow

Well, he said he'd come and see what happened, and he did.  Wilders was refused entry after arriving at Heathrow's Terminal 1 this afternoon.  He had travelled legally - he was on a legal flight, he travelled as an EU citizen and I presume there was nothing wrong with his passport.  He came for a legal purpose.

The Conservative Party has to denounce this appalling act immediately.  We either believe in freedom of speech or we don't. 

Please, let's have some consistency

I've seen Geert Wilders' film Fitna. I didn't think much of it.

It's distasteful, misleading and unneccessarily inflammatory. On top off that, I fear that in the hands of certain people the film could be used to stir up racial hatred and tensions that can only play into the hands of political extremists like the BNP.

That said, I've never believed that the way to tackle intolerance is to forcibly close down debate about unsavoury or uncomfortable topics. The way you defeat extremists is through an open, intelligent and reasoned public debate which highlights just how ludicrous their views really are.

By refusing Geert Wilders, an elected Member of Parliament from a democratic country like the Netherlands, entry into the United Kingdom all Jacqui Smith has done is raise awareness of his tawdry film (freely available following a three second Google search) and increase opportunities for the BNP to rail against the so-called "liberal elite" who defend our multi-ethnic society.

Wilders, as unedifying a man as he may be, does at least appear to be a democrat.  He has not called for the elimination of entire states and ethnicities or the forcible incorporation of any country into an Islamic caliphate.

The same cannot be said for many of the individuals this government has allowed to freely walk the streets of our towns and cities spreading their brand of debauched bile.  The names of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Abu Hamza al-Masri and Abu Qatada instantly spring to mind.  Similarly, the British government was less than forceful in its efforts to block Robert Mugabe from attending the European Union's Africa summit in Lisbon in December 2007, instead opting to stage a headline-snatching faux boycott of the meeting.

Please; let's have some consistency from Jacqui Smith and this Labour government.

In the limit

Iain Dale highlighted one of those funny (as in amusing) US websites the other day, where you answer questions (eg "Do you think that it's good to kill some people?") and are provided with a 2-d map showing where you live, politically, on a left-right and authoritarian-libertarian pair of axes. (Of course I came out almost boringly bang in the centre, though perhaps a tad too far to the left to justify writing in a place called 'Centre Right'. It's a big tent though, innit?) All good fun - try it for yourself - but it made me wonder about the limits. What are the limits to your own political space? How many dimensions (moving beyond 'left/right') do you think span that space?

I'm not going to try and reinvent the draft statement of conservatism. In any case, I suspect that the dimensionality of political affinity stretches way beyond anything that can be summarised in a space that can be drawn in two dimensions. But, while you would be hard pressed to say I am x cm to the left of zero on the left/right axis, I do think, sometimes, you come across an event which you know exists beyond your own upper limit of acceptability. I've read of two such events this morning.

The first is the most alarming & was most eloquently captured by Douglas Murray in his post yesterday, so I won't repeat much. The Dutch politician Geert Wilders has been denied entry into the UK, because the Home Office says it wants to stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country. I know nothing about Geert Wilders but I know this: that in denying entry (or attempting to deny entry; one hopes that Mr Wilders will come anyway) to an elected member of the Netherlands' legislature (the Netherlands!), our government has forfeited its right to be viewed as merely corrupt and incompetent. I don't think it's inappropriate to view this act as sinister and deliberate. We're no longer conducting a still semi-theoretical discussion about what might happen if the wretched ID card is ever introduced. We're witnessing the government using executive authority to ban entry of an individual who has committed no crime other than to make a film of which the Justice Secretary disapproves. This is beyond the limit of what should be tolerated in a government: a government of the political party, moreover, which turns blind eyes to any number of preachers of hate (Livingstone & Qaradi, remember) and which saw fit just a few days ago to bend over backwards to lavish praise on the Prime Minister of a country which still harrasses and tortures its political dissidents.

"You can sing carols about Jesus, children, but you can't talk about him"

There's been a rash of recent examples of Christians facing the sack for expressing their faith, of a type that we never see in relation to any other faith. But this story of a school receptionist and her 5-year old daughter is bizarre and shocking in equal measure, on all sorts of levels.

If I were a governor at the school it would be the Head under investigation, not the receptionist. If I were a parent I would be looking for a new school.

Government bans Dutch MP Geert Wilders from entering Britain after Muslim leaders threaten to organise mob protest

By Douglas Murray of the Centre for Social Cohesion.

The Dutch MP and Party leader, Geert Wilders (pictured), has been told he cannot enter the UK.  Wilders was due to speak to fellow Parliamentarians at the House of Lords tomorrow and show his film ‘Fitna’.

I blogged on ‘Fitna’ for Conservative Home when it came out, just after interviewing Wilders for The Spectator.  The film, which can be seen here, equates verses in the Koran with actions carried out in their name by Islamist terrorists.

The meeting scheduled for tomorrow had already been cancelled once.  Yesterday Wilders was presented with a letter written on behalf of the Home Secretary stating that she ‘is satisfied that your statements about Muslims and their beliefs, as expressed in your film Fitna and elsewhere would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the UK.’

The thing that would ‘threaten public security’, let alone ‘community harmony’ is that twice in the last month Wilders has been invited to speak in the House of Lords and twice Lord Ahmed of Rotherham (soon to go to prison himself) and other Muslim ‘leaders’ have explained that they will provide a mob to object to the film.  Ahmed proclaimed the previous effort to stop Wilders coming to Parliament as ‘a victory for the Muslim community.’

Random remarks

Short selling

In case you had doubted my case at the time, we can now demonstrate that banning short selling in financial stocks made things worse not better.

Apologies

Since everyone who has ever been involved in banking or regulation seems likely to be dragged before some kangaroo court to undergo ritual reputational disembowelment, I thought I'd get my plans in.  I think apologies always sound better in Latin, and I'm hoping that mine can be made to an operatic soundtrack, or perhaps a setting of the Mass or a Requiem - Mozart, perhaps.  The following seem to me to be the key phrases to memorise:

1. me poenitet
2. ex toto corde poenitet me omnium
3. mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
4. lacrimosus venit judicandus homo reus
5. ignoram, feles abegit exercitationes
6. ibi non eram, raptus fui ab hominibus ex astris

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

It's no secret that the overwhelming majority of Brussels Eurocrats were positively overjoyed at the election of President Barack Obama, but don't you think this promotional graphic for the European Parliament's 2009 election coverage is going a little far?

Then again, they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...!

"The proximate cause of the banking crisis was the increase in couple cohabitation and the banks supine acceptance of the government's promotion of "every choice of lifestyle". The banks lent money to couples who were unlikely to stick together."

Nick Gulliford has posted the above thought on the thread below Michael Fallon's indispensable Platform article. It's a very uncomfortable thought but I bet Nick points to a contributory factor. All the stats point to much greater instability in cohabiting relationships. I'd certainly like to see the data.

Blue Peter Blues

So it isn't just the economy that's suffering...the BBC Trust today revealed that Blue Peter lost 40% of its viewers in just one year. It isn't just Blue Peter either - over the same period BBC 1 has lost 5% of its under 12 viewers.

It is doubtful any of this would have happened if the BBC had real competition for children's TV. But since the decision to ban advertising of "unhealthy" food to children, ITV have pulled out of daytime children's TV and the BBC has had an effective monopoly. This is presumably why the Beeb felt comfortable cutting 20 minutes from its key after school slot in order to fit in the Weakest Link.

The lesson is clear: monopolies lead to less choice in broadcasting as in every field. Which is why the key outcome of the government's review of public service broadcasting must be to promote competition and choice for viewers across all genres. Children's TV is a case in point, but plurality of provision for news is even more important. If we want the highest standards from the BBC, they need to know we have a choice.

Could we sue Gordon Brown?

Since it now seems to be established that you can sue your MP over her poor performance, following the case of Ann Keen, perhaps some of Gordon Brown's constituents could sue him for having lost them each thousands of pounds in the credit crunch - and that's before the emotional damage!

Yet another posting on the bonus culture

A lot has been said in recent days on banking bonuses, including two interesting posts on CentreRight from Mark Field and Andrew Lilico yesterday. We have heard condemnation yesterday from leaders of all three political parties for proposals from some of our state-owned banks to pay substantial bonuses.

I worked for eight years in derivatives on a trading floor. Even as a former banker, whose remuneration in the 1980s and 1990s was very dependent on bonuses, I have to agree with the anti-bonus argument, and I agree with much of what was said by Mark Field.

Those arguing for the bonuses make various points. Some say that bank employees in divisions which were or are profitable should not have to carry the can for those who came close to bringing down their institutions. Others argue that ending all bonuses would merely leave good quality and productive employees to seek a job in another (e.g. non-UK) bank, at a time when our banks need to keep hold of productive and revenue-generating employees (and it is worth remembering that the 12% coupon on the Government's preference shares has to be re-paid somehow). One also needs to bear in mind that in the case of many employees, the so-called "bonus" is something of a misnomer, as it can constitute a very significant percentage of the total compensation. A "discretionary element of the salary" might be a more accurate description.

When it's pointless to coordinate

EU finance ministers and other honchos gathered yesterday afternoon and today to consider a coordinated policy response to the depression and the financial crisis.  But there's only any point in coordinating policy when we have a pretty good idea what the best thing to do is.  If we really don't have a clue - if we admit we are in "uncharted waters" and eighteen months of endless policy initiatives has been making things worse rather than better, demonstrating (in case there was any doubt) that we really don't know what the best thing to do is - then coordination is a device for everyone getting things wrong in the same way.

Better, when you don't know what to do, would be for each of us to try our own thing.  Then we can look around at what others have tried and what seemed to be working better or worse, and gradually iterate towards some kind of solution.  It's obviously politically attractive to all herd together - that way who can blame you if you get it wrong?  Herding is what everyone tends to do in conditions of great uncertainty - we see it in wild stock market fluctuations, in the lending policies of banks, in business decisions in the wider economy.  But we should not let our politicians get away with that.  Herding is nothing more than political cover.  It isn't a constructive policy.

Wise men are keeping Osborne company

I'm just coming to the end of a fabulous week in the USA and vote Washington DC the most friendly city I have ever been to. London would be transformed if we could be as polite and helpful and spontaneous as our Washingtonian cousins. Now in New York I got the Wall Street Journal this morning and came across the full page spread advert paid for by the Cato Institute which has over 260 economists including Nobel laureates [though not Jed Bartlett] disagreeing with Obama's quote from Jan 9th when he said that "economists from across the political spectrum agree" on the need for massive government spending.

It's worth reproducing their succinct argument here:

"Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930's. More government spending did not solve Japan's 'lost decade' in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the US today. To improve the economy, policymakers should focus on reforms that remove the impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth."

So Cameron-Osborne are not so lonely now, but the grim reality is that they will have to become salvage experts between now and the next election.

On bonuses and other incentive schemes

Many companies offer annual bonuses, bonuses attached to particular projects or milestones, commissions, and other incentive schemes.  Let us consider a few reasons why this is done:

• To create loyalty.  In many companies a non-trivial component of total salary is paid in the form of a six-monthly or annual lump-sum for which staff are only eligible if they continue to work for the company past a specified date.  This gives staff an incentive not to change jobs prior to that date.
• To manage cash-flow.  By paying staff only at the end of the year, companies ensure that they have earned profits before paying out cash.  A clear example would be a start-up company with limited initial resources that promises to pay its Managing Director a lump sum at the end of the year.
• To transfer risk.  If you have a start-up company or a company undergoing rapid growth there may be uncertainty about how much you could pay staff and yet still be profitable.  By having a pay strucuture with a limited base salary and a bonus paid at the end of the year, the Chairman is in a position, when considering bonuses, to decide on total remuneration with less risk to the company.
• To reward staff more precisely according to their individual output.  Two staff members that on the surface appear similar may, in any one year, differ considerably in their contribution to the company.  It is economically efficient for staff to be paid according to their individual productivity.  Bonuses allow this to be done more accurately.  This allows companies to pay enough to keep their highest quality staff whilst not over-paying for lower quality staff.
• To direct the efforts of the company to specific objectives.  If the shareholders desire that the company should achieve certain strategic goals - e.g. establish a new branch in some country, or establish a certian market share in a new sector.

Very few British jobs have gone to British workers

RMT leader Bob Crow was in full flow on the BBC’s Broadcasting House yesterday, eulogising (seemingly) the return of wildcat strikes. Happy shades of the 1970s. But now the week-long strike at the Lindsey oil refinery has been called off and attendant wildcat strikes have ended, it is an opportune moment to reflect on the dispute. Two factors stand out.

The first is that some commentators seemed to be slightly fazed by the notion that the UK had effectively no control over EU nationals entering its territory and working in its workplaces. But this is a fundamental aspect of EU membership and the Single Market with its four freedoms of goods and services, people and capital. And it does seem that the strikers were really objecting to the basic EU principle of the free movement of workers, rather than individual directives (including the much maligned Posted Workers Directive) or specific court cases.

I was quite astonished. Could it really be that even now, after over 35 years of membership, people are still unaware of the huge restrictions on this country’s ability to make its own sovereign decisions as a member of the EU? It is as if there is still the view that, somehow, EU membership means belonging to a club which imposes very few obligations on its members. Whereas the truth is that the EU’s rules and regulations penetrate just about every aspect of our lives. Indeed employment law and related matters is an area where the EU has been especially active in creating “Social Europe” with numerous and costly regulations that have been vigorously supported by the unions. A recent, excellent, report on regulations by Open Europe found that EU employment law had cost Britain £31bn since 1998 and that new EU health and safety legislation had cost £5.7bn during the last decade. These are significant extra costs by any standards.

Why no Government condemnation of "climate change denial" of Northern Ireland Environment minister?

One story which is attracting lots of media attention today is the decision of Northern Ireland's Environment minister - Sammy Wilson of the DUP (pictured) - to ban adverts on television in the province warning about how changing your light bulbs or not leaving TVs on standby etc could combat climate change.

The full story is in the Belfast Telegraph, but basically WIlson's response is that of a climate change denier: "The vast majority of people are not prepared to accept this view of life any more and are certainly not prepared to bear the massive financial consequences,” he told the newspaper.

Whilst I do not want to get into the rights and wrongs of what he is saying, I note with interest that whilst a number of political opponents and environmentalists are queuing up to condemn him, there is yet to be any such criticism from a member of the Government.

Could it be something to do with those nine DUP votes - one of which was Wilson's - which saved the Government's skin in the Commons vote on 42-day detention vote last year?

A few home truths on banking bonuses

Our nation needs a thriving financial services sector. The spiritual home of the UK’s banking industry is in the City, but its importance as an employer and engine for economic growth extends throughout the land.

As the City’s MP I regard with dismay the attempts by some in public life to make banks and bankers scapegoats for the recession. We should recognise that many thousands working in this sector have already lost their jobs; others, relatively modestly paid, are fearful for their futures in finance. The great majority of bank employees are caught up in events outside their control or influence and are as bewildered as the rest of us at the collapse in their sector.

This only adds to my disbelief at reports that the directors of RBS and Lloyds Banking Group, entities which survive courtesy of huge taxpayer loans and guarantees, now propose to pay billions of pounds in bonuses to reflect performance over the last year. The public outrage at this news is entirely justifiable.

Calling all students: your chance to win £1,000

Word reaches me that entries are being sought for the Electoral Reform Society's annual Thomas Hare Essay Competition, which is open to anyone in full-time education and carries a prize of £1,000 for the winner, whose essay will be published by the ERS.

Full details of how to enter are available online, but essentially you need to write a 3,000-word essay on one of four topics, all of which relate to democracy and political engagement, and submit it by March 30th. Get writing!