CentreRight

Bravery and Otherwise

Come now, Tim, remember the last time they tried to intimidate City workers?

But that's not the point of this post.  I am astonished not to have seen anything here about the despicable actions of South Yorkshire Police in preventing willing neighbours from attempting to rescue a family that perished in a fire, saying they must wait for the Fire Brigade to come.  The ever-excellent Natalie Solent at Samizdata has some insightful things to say:

Note: I do not know whether the Colly family could have been saved had the attempt been made while Mrs Colly was still alive to scream for someone to save her kids. A spokeswoman for the South Yorkshire Police said, “The senior officer in charge is confident we handled this incident as professionally as possible. In a situation like that you could end up with more deceased bodies than you had in the first place.”

One of the lesser known sights of London is the Watts Memorial in Postman's Park. I gather it featured in the film Closer, starring Natalie Portman and Jude Law. No, I am not being funny, suddenly veering off into a travelogue in the middle of a post about the deaths of a family. I wish there were something to laugh about. The memorial was set up by a Victorian artist, George Frederick Watts, to commemorate those who died saving others. It consists of hand made plaques each bearing the name of a person who sacrificed his or her life and a brief citation. Very quaint they are, with their crowded lettering with the extra-large initial capitals and little swirly plant motifs and curlicues in the corners. Even the names are quaint, laboriously given in full. Police Constables Percy Edwin Cook, Edward George Brown Greenoff, Harold Frank Ricketts and George Stephen Funnell are among them. I wonder what PC Percy Edwin Cook, for instance, who perished when he "Voluntarily descended high tension chamber at Kensington to rescue two workmen overcome by poisonous gas" would have made of his successors in the South Yorkshire force.

Don't dress like a banker for a few days

I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to attend the demo highlighted by Iain Murray and my advice to anyone in the City and central London is to consider whether they want to look like a banker over the next few days. These are two posters I 'iPhoned' earlier. I hear that razor blades have been put behind the tape attached to some of these posters so that anyone attempting to rip them down gets a very nasty shock:

Pro-Capitalism Counter Demonstration Tomorrow

Congratulations to those brave souls who are prepared to brave the angry anti-capitalists tomorrow in a small counter-demo.  As the organiser says:

The mixed economy has failed. This crisis is the fault of regulation (qua regulation; not just the "wrong kind" of regulation). We do not live in a Laissez-Faire Capitalist system, and it is in the most regulated sectors - the banking and housing sectors - that this crisis has occurred.

A patchwork of various groups are going to descend on London, campaigning for the end of any remnants of Capitalism that we have left.

I am proposing simply that we attend as well - but protest against the Statism that got us into this mess, and for a free-market, which is our moral right, and which is the only thing that will get us out of this miss.

The date is going to be April 1st. We'll meet at 11am outside the Bank of England.

I hope a few more people will join them and that they will get some press exposure, at least allowing the other side to be heard.  I'd be there if I could.

What's Paul O'Grady doing at the G20 summit?!

In advance of the G20 summit, Gordon Brown was speaking this morning at St Paul's Cathedral alongside a man who bore more than a passing resemblance to TV presenter Paul O'Grady.

It was only after a second look that it became clear that it was in fact the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd...

2.33 or not 2.33?

So the Senior Salary Review Board (SSRB) in its independent-minded wisdom has declared that MPs’ salaries should rise by 2.33% for the year commencing tomorrow.

Predictably the Prime Minister in typical grandstanding form announces that he and his ministers will not take the increase. Politically – not least in these recessionary times – David Cameron has no choice but to follow suit.

But I must confess I am left a little uneasy by all this.

For at the very heart of the problem over allowances and expenses is the fact that repeatedly parliament has failed to bite the bullet and increase MPs’ salaries. Thereby a green light has been given to the culture of racking up the expenses and allowances system as a way of playing catch up, for salary foregone.

I would rather that the Prime Minister had expended less energy in trying to make populist gestures at this time and more in dealing urgently with a pathetically inadequate allowances regime which threatens to engulf the public reputation of parliament.

After all the whole idea of the SSRB is for parliament to receive – and act upon – a genuinely independent view on parliamentary pay and conditions. There is little point in MPs and the general public paying lip-service to the notion that parliament should have no say in setting its own remuneration when we promptly ignore the recommendations of the body set up to do precisely that.

If it had recommended that MPs take a one per cent pay cut, I should have been a little disappointed, but would have accepted the decision. Similarly an independent recommendation to pay an additional 2.33% especially at such time when we desperately need to wean MPs off their allowances addiction, should be accepted without question.

In short parliament – and the general public - should accept the recommendation of the SSRB in rain or shine.

Conservative politicians are better dressed than their Labour counterparts (according to GQ magazine)

The latest edition (May 2009) of GQ has arrived on my doormat and aside from reading my monthly column (p. 53) or seeking more photos of cover star January Jones (p.152), I should also commend to you the "50 Best-Dressed Men in Britain" supplement.

It features a variety of our leading politicians and the party divide is pretty stark.

David Cameron is named the eighth best-dressed man in Britain, with George Osborne a new entry at 42 and Boris Johnson also entering the list at 46. Says Nicholas Coleridge, the Condé Nast Managing Director, of London's Mayor:

"Most improved dresser of 2009: The most dramatic haircut since Samson, and a range of smartish new suits, so far scarcely crumpled at all, and no concertinas around the ankles".

UKIP leader Nigel Farage somehow enters the chart at 49, but it is the list of the 20 worst-dressed men in Britain where the Government's leading lights hit the radar. No less than five of the Cabinet feature in that chart, namely Gordon Brown (3), Alistair Darling (7), Jacqui Smith (13 - don't ask), David Miliband (14) and Lord Mandelson (18).

The Business Secretary merits particular criticism from design historian, Stephen Bayley, who advises that "only Italians can wear V-neck woollies with suits".

Do ConHome readers agree with GQ's findings? Are there any particularly snappily-dressed politicians who you think also deserve recognition?

Parliamentarians must set an example

If you are a benefits cheat, why should you feel any shame when the employment minister acts as he does? If you are a peddler of filth or a fraudster, why should you feel any shame when the Home Secretary, who is meant to uphold the criminal law, acts as she does? Doesn't it just sap your confidence when the likes of Stuart Bell MP seek to root out the whistle blower while being silent on the blatant behaviour of his ministerial Parliamentary colleagues?

The maintenance of respect for our national leaders is important. The appalling behaviour of so many Labour Parliamentarians - particularly these two ministers - eats away at our social fabric. It eats away at the respect, civility, honesty and decency that we collectively try to build in our society.

Parliamentarians should set an example. But how to turn it all around? If it were down to you, would you strip these ministers of office? What other steps would you take to restore trust in our political system?

Q: Which body or organisation books the most advertising space in the UK?

A: The Government.

It's a great (and awful) story from the Sunday Telegraph - the Govt overtook Proctor & Gamble in advertising spend this year, according to Nielson.  Remarkable.  I was meaning to put this up but didn't get to a computer yesterday.  It would seem, from the article, that the BBC's "It's all in the database" scareathon ad campaign isn't included in the figures, which would drive the Government's figure even higher.

The trouble with Boris

Think I'm the first on this site to raise the subject of the remarkable hatchet job Dispatches aired last night on Boris Johnson.  Opinions, anyone?

The part that particularly struck me, no pun intended, was the part in which - as Dispatches told it - Boris seemed to be complicit in a "hit" on a fellow journalist being organised by an old friend of his.  Can't be true - can it?

Churchillian environmentalism: “We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls”

By Ben Caldecott, Head of Policy Exchange's Energy & Environment Unit

When confronted with a challenging international decision post-war British Prime Ministers will undoubtedly ask themselves, “What would Churchill have done?”. Given the environmental challenges we face, ranging from climate change to biodiversity loss, and the coordinated international responses needed to tackle many of these issues, perhaps it’s not unreasonable to ask the same question. What might a Churchillian response to these dramatic problems look like and could it be a doctrine relevant for today’s politicians?

For a start, given Churchill’s internationalist outlook he would have favoured coordinated multilateral action, with the UK and European Union taking a central role. He would also have expected the United States to join the fight at some stage, after all, “The Americans will always do the right thing...after they've exhausted all the alternatives”.

As an economic liberal, he would have seen the benefits of new environmental markets driving emissions reductions through innovation and the deployment of low carbon technologies. He would have been in favour of the state creating an enabling framework for businesses and individuals to make the right choices for the environment. But, he would baulk at the idea, possessed by a surprisingly large number of green activists, that a “benign dictatorship” and direct state control of the economy is the solution.

Turn Again, Boris

I am distressed that Boris Johnson has once again fallen for the hype of "green jobs," saying

"I see the green economy as an unprecedented opportunity not only to improve our planet and our quality of life, but to develop new industries and create new jobs in an economic climate that is otherwise extremely difficult."

To give Boris the benefit of the doubt, this is wishful thinking.  Study after study of "the new energy economy" in the US demonstrates that green jobs are hype rather than reality.  Even an alliance of trade unions and green pressure groups admitted that what green jobs there are in the US are of low quality (of course the solution to that, the report claims, is strong unions).  The truth seems to be dawning even in California.

That's the US, of course, but there's a new study out from King Juan Carlos University in Spain that examines the effect of policies aimed at promoting green jobs there.  Prof. Gabriel Calzada found that for every green job created, 2.2 jobs were lost in traditional industries.  I also understand that the study (there isn't an English version available on line yet as far as I can tell) points out that the jobs that were created were mostly transitory, and that 40,000 jobs are expected to be lost in the solar industry this year.

This should, of course, be blindingly obvious.  I don't think anyone has summed up the green job mythologising better than Catherine Bennett in The Guardian, of all places, back in 2004, satirising the thinking of HRH the Prince of Wales:

"In short, if we can rise to the challenge, the permanent abolition of the wheel would have the marvellously synergistic effect of creating thousands of new jobs - as blacksmiths, farriers, grooms and so on - at the same time as it conserved energy and saved the planet from otherwise inevitable devastation."

Don't fall for the hype.  Turn again, Boris, before it's too late!

We need a Zacchaeus Watershed in British Politics

If MPs were subject to the European Working Time directive limit that is coming in for junior doctors of 48 hours, half of all parliamentary activity would grind to a halt. The majority of MPs work long and hard hours representing, scrutinising, legislating and campaigning on behalf of their constituents. The majority have gone into politics wanting to improve the quality of life for those they represent. And most of them earn less than the average salary of a mere director of an NHS  Trust.

The headlines of fraud, failure and foolishness must grieve the many honourable MPs who are all tarred with the same brush. But today we face an unprecedented situation: seismic national economic meltdown combined with extensive individual fiscal suspicion. Whilst politicians are always towards the bottom of trustability league tables, unfolding revelations of individual greed are grating against a backdrop of developing personal hardship and the public are left feeing angry and betrayed.

Brown’s current position is untenable.  To do nothing (yet) and allow the Standards watchdog to follow up the trail of successive media exposés is allowing a crisis of trust to deepen. Sleaze will continue to flow and the damage will be to local confidence, national democracy and international reputation.

Or Brown could change his mind and authorise an immediate investigation into the expenses of all 646 UK MPs. An expensive exercise that will exonerate some, condemn others but satisfy no one as no resignations will accompany the findings. In any other walk of life there would already have been legal proceedings and firings. But whether through ignorance, weakness or their own deliberate fault the rules on expenses have been abused and what is right and appropriate has got lost in the muddy waters of allowance guidelines.

But there is another option which I call the Zacchaeus opportunity.

How many anti smoking officers does the NHS employ?

I went to see a dog show at a local park yesterday and was chatting to a pleasant young man with glossy leaflets and clipboard who was there to sign up people to agree to give up smoking. He is one of eight people employed by the NHS in the London borough I live in to carry out this work. People ring up and pledge to give up smoking (usually on No Smoking Day.) His team ring them back to check on progress. Invite them to meetings to be told to keep it up.

How many people give up smoking who wouldn't have given up anyway? Pretty few I would guess. The endless nannying and indoctrination is probably pretty irrelevant. People have got to that stage will already know that smoking is bad for you. The cost is considerable. Perhaps equivalent to giving everybody in our borough who wanted one a free flu jab. Or of something that could make a real difference for a targeted group to give up smoking. Free hypnosis for pregnant women for instance.

I don't suppose that the NHS has given special treatment to Hammersmith and Fulham. So there are probably thousands of these people employed around the country. Leave aside the libertarian argument about smoking being a matter of choice. Leave aside the crude financial argument that smokers pay huge tax and as it happens are a smaller burden on the NHS because they die younger and so reduce the requirement for geriatric care. Even in terms of improving health, is it at all likely this great anti smoking army represent good value for money?

What would Major Barbara do about Stuart Wheeler?

She would take his money and probably end up running his business. He should go, of course, Mr Wheeler. There's no place in the Tory party for someone who thinks he can buy its policy. I would think this regardless of the manner in which the putative policy purchaser made the money with which he seeks to buy his policies; but I admit that the more I've thought about Stuart Wheeler (whom I am sure is in real life a charming and good person), the more the plot of Major Barbara, George Bernard Shaw's (in my opinion) masterpiece, has re-occurred to me.

We (by which I mean the people who run our party) were, prior to Mr Wheeler's political, ah, realignment, in the position of Major Barbara herself. Should we take this man's money, and do good with it? Or should we reject it, on the basis of its provenance? Some few aspects of my presbyterian upbringing have stayed fast within me; chief of which is that I abhor gambling. The haunted faces of men, outside the numerous bookmaker shops that my impoverished borough boasts, is one of the most depressing in urban life. Yes, yes, I know, free will, no, of course I would not ban it, but look at the face of the man who has lost his money, again, and tell me you do not think: someone is making money from this misery. I cannot think good of this. No doubt this is a personal failing. That you can now lose money on more gambled outcomes than mere horse-races, without as much as setting foot in a bookmaker's shop, is not my definition of progress.

Home Secretary advocates free speech for Islamists the same day as government restricts free speech for Christians

At 0810 on Tuesday morning Jacqui Smith went on Radio 4's Today programme to explain the government's new counter terrorism strategy. The Home Secretary was at pains to emphasise that non violent Islamist groups must be allowed freedom of speech. Ms Smith told listeners:

"I've been very clear that one of the important values we have in this country is free speech. People should be able to say what they believe, but they shouldn't necessarily do that without challenge. An argument we're making is not that these views become illegal, but that we as government, citizens and others will challenge the views of those who seek to undermine our shared values."

At 17.41 that same day, less than ten hours later, the government used a 3 line whip to force through the Commons the abolition of the 'Free Speech' clause that the House of Lords last year made the government insert into the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act. The 'Free Speech' clause essentially sought to ensure that whilst stirring up hatred against people who were homosexual would become criminalised, free discussion of the morality of homosexual practice (i.e. beliefsabout sexual ethics) would not be. In particular, it sought to protect Christian ministers from being prosecuted for simply stating what the Church has for the last two thousand years held to be the teaching of Scripture, that sexual relationships outside of hetrosexual marriage are in the Bible's words 'sinful'.

Let's celebrate how far we've come

Over lunch yesterday Peter Franklin was urging me to observe tonight's Earth Hour and turn off the lights for sixty minutes for the sake of the planet.

Fortunately I'm celebrating Robert Halfon's 40th birthday tonight and all lights will be blazing for the party.

Boris has promised to observe Earth Hour - but Andrew Bolt has already observed that enthusiasm for this stunt has dimmed in Australia and New Zeland since last year.

An alternative to Earth Hour is the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Human Achievement Hour.  Rather than embarrassment at humankind's progress, CEI urges us to celebrate how far we have come...

(That voice is that of CentreRight newbie Iain Murray).

Still waiting for IT to deliver better health

The hospital I am sitting in has had had multi-millions spent on it in the past 10 years. There are shiny new wards and smart new beds, flat screen tv for my daughter to watch and impressive portable technology that can scan, monitor and measure [but not weigh - that one is broken] at the flick of a switch.

So can someone tell me why it took 3 hours for notes to follow her from A&E to the ward which meant tests were delayed until the next day; why the Consultant couldn't access previous blood test results processed by the in-house lab; and why I've had to fill in her details 4 times?  Ok, so I know the answer. IT. Lack of. It's just so incredible that we are still relying on paper records and the IT records that are in place are either partial or inaccessible to different departments all or some of the time.

Not only would electronic records improve efficiency all round, they are an essential component of affordable healthcare in the developing world. This is one of the key recommendations of the Rockefeller Foundation's ehealth 'Call to Action'. But while they focus on international development, we need to make rapid progress here because IT is one of the answers to the squeeze that will come on public sector spending in the years ahead. I could plug 2020health's Transformational IT Seminar on May 19th at the Royal College of Medicine with our emphasis on patient-controlled electronic records, or our international speakers including one coming from a Spanish paperless hospital. But I'll do that another time. Right now I just want the test results to come through, even on paper.

Anatomy of a great speech

Daniel Hannan's speech - no longer infamous but just plain famous - has attracted widespread plaudits (I've received several emails from Americans I've never met asking me to pass on their admiration to Dan) and deservedly so.

I thought I'd put my speechwriter hat on (and perhaps perch a smaller stand-up comedian hat on top of it) and analyse the speech in some detail. I don't think readers need persuading it was a corker, and the hopelessly desperate nature of the Labour Party's response only serves as further proof. But it might be interesting to "break it down" - as the kids probably don't say any longer. 

First of all, Dan was perfectly polite throughout. Certainly he was cross, but it wasn't the synthetic splentic rage that politicians sometimes deploy to such ill-effect. A major reason that the speech was masterly was that it was so controlled. Critics might say that it resorted to personal abuse, but each accusation ("Perhaps you would have more moral authority in this house if your actions matched your words", "you have run out of our money", "I’ve long accepted that you’re pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for these things") resonated because they were fair comment. 

Labour MP Tom Harris had a rather pathetic stab at accusing of Dan of being unpatriotic:

"What was truly repugnant about his speech was the total absence of any sense of patriotism. ... Gordon Brown isn’t just Labour’s prime minister; he’s Britain’s prime minister, and for any UK politician to launch such a disgraceful, personal attack on his country’s leader — in a foreign country — is nothing short of disgraceful."

Nice try, Tom. But you've set a dangerous precedent. Will Labour MEPs follow a self-denying ordinance when Prime Minister Cameron addresses the European Parliament? And is it really on-message to stress the foreignness of the same? I thought we were all Europeans now. 

Could we see a new global currency?

The Chinese have floated the idea, the Russians are keen, the Americans indicate they might ("yes, but no") support it and the IMF could run it... a new global currency. Is this idea just barmy talk, geopolitical posturing or could it actually happen?

In my post here yesterday on the worries about the Government being able to continue its binge borrowing, much of the comment discussion was on this idea. My first reaction was "What a loony idea, that'll never happen!" but then the Americans suddenly seem to have helped it run.

What do people think?

Telling voters the truth may improve our prospects at the General Election (and it will certainly give us a mandate)

'Anyone in management not planning to spend considerably less in the next year is living in cloud cuckoo land.’

This was the bleak, yet candid, commercial assessment of a high profile businessman in my constituency.

Most people in the political world accept that the same strictures must apply to government. At some point, some unpalatable and politically difficult decisions will have to be made on public spending. But in the final year of this parliament, how open and honest should the political class be with the electorate about the scale of the troubles that lie ahead? Should we Conservatives be the first to tell some home truths about our nation’s economic future?

I have long argued that we should tell it as it is to the electorate and believe we must continue to do so for one compelling reason: In the event that we are elected, it is crucial that we have a strong and clear mandate to do what is necessary to put the public finances back on track. After the next election it will not be enough simply to freeze or trim public expenditure. Instead much more radical solutions will be necessary. Policymakers will need to re-evaluate where the State’s empire should properly start and end.

I accept that this message is not an easy one to deliver. Indeed there are some sound political reasons to avoid even starting down such a path.

For a start, the extreme economic volatility of recent months is likely to continue well beyond the forthcoming election year. There can be few certainties about the state of the economy to be inherited by any incoming administration. Specific policy commitments are arguably unwise.

It is also worth reflecting that for many, this recession is still ‘happening to someone else’, with the real pain and anger being felt by only a minority. For those in (relatively) secure employment – including most in the public sector – the cost of living has fallen dramatically over the past year. Many with tracker mortgages are paying less than half the cost servicing housing debt than they were a year ago. Similarly a visit to the supermarket or filling station has become noticeably cheaper in recent months.

Labour haven't quite got the hang of this internet thingy

Dan Hannan's video has now been watched more than a million times on YouTube. Even the BBC has begun to report it. Labour's response? Watch the video below and squirm...

It's a project of a Labour MEP, Eluned Morgan, and, unbelievably, Peter Hain has backed it.

Is Ed Balls's candour foolish or refreshing - or both?

The full text of Ed Ball's interview in the new edition of the New Statesman is now online.

The interviewer, GMTV's Gloria de Piero, spent a day with the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, during which she made a number of attempts to entrap him into admitting his ambitions for yet higher office.

He skirts around the issue of the Labour leadership, saying:

"I’m not going to say that I don’t want to be leader of the Labour Party."

But then they get onto the job which he is widely know to covet, and he finally admits:

"Would I like to be chancellor at some point in the future? Of course I would. I’d love it."

On the one hand, this admission is foolish, since his political opponents will now presumably taunt Alistair Darling by saying that his Cabinet colleague is after his job - as well as accusing Balls of seeing his current job merely as a staging post to something else.

But then he was (eventually) giving a straight answer to a straight question. And aren't we always demanding that our politicians be more honest?

Re: All Green Issues Are Not the Same

Tim,

First of all thanks for the opportunity to post here.  It's a fine venue with a fine crowd.  For my first post I thought I'd add some thoughts to what you have to say below.  It is right and, indeed, essential, for conservatives (of all stripes) to involve themselves in "environmental" issues.  However, to do so by borrowing a set of policies from a movement that is opposed to conservativism in virtually every sense is just foolish, and that is what most conservatives who talk about environmentalism have in effect done.  They have ignored not just the conservative tradition of stewardship that you mention, but also the important and respectable theories of Free Market Environmentalism (FME). One of the many reasons why the Quality of Life policy group went so far off the rails was because it failed to include, or even reach out to, leading British thinkers on FME like Prof. Julian Morris of the International Policy Network.

The fact is that we can tackle virtually every "environmental" issue without going down the road to ecological serfdom (and actually inducing environmental disaster as a result) by applying these two principles - even the vexed subject of global warming.  In fact, that's the subject of the last chapter of my book. We conservatives have the will, and we have the principles, but the party has not put the two together.  I've offered before privately, but will do so now publicly, to come over and brief the party on the principles of stewardship and FME and how they can produce a credible, proven, genuinely conservative environmental policy.  I'm not expecting any response, however.

Why we need an urgent review of regulations on local newspaper ownership

By Jeremy Hunt MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media ad Sport

With advertising revenue down 35% since the onset of the recession, more than 50 local newspapers have now gone under. This week Northcliffe (owner of the Daily Mail) announced 1000 redundancies. Even Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee has written about it. Should we be worried?

For localists like me, the demise of local newspapers has profound democratic implications. The represent in many parts of the country - not least my own constituency - the single most important mechnism for people to express their views on local issues. And judging by my own postbag, more than half of which is about local rather than national issues, people really do care about what happens on their doorstep. For that matter it isn't just local newspapers we need: local radio (struggling badly) and local TV (a joke in this country compared to the US) also have a very important role to play.

All green issues are not the same

Regular ConHome readers will know that I'm a sceptic on climate change but that doesn't mean I'm not interested in environmental issues.  I recycle.  I bike around London.  I hate litter.  I love trains.  I support the RSPB.  I only fly across the Atlantic once for every four trips by Steve Hilton.

When I commissioned the masthead for ConHome - long before green issues was seriously embraced by the Tory leadership - I included a shield dedicated to conservation.  Conservation should be a central part of Conservatism but that doesn't have to mean support for (a) Human-made global warming and (b) The draconian, unilateralisat action urged upon us by the likes of Jonathan Porritt.

It seems that most Americans agree with me (I'd be interested in a similar poll of Brits).  This from Gallup: