CentreRight

We must learn lessons from the events around Rothbury

Two enquiries are to be held into the recent saga of Raoul Moat - one into the missed opportunity to avert disaster when prison officers alerted police of the threat and the second into his death - but are we focussing too narrowly and missing a vital necessity of looking at this tragic series of events in a wider sense, to analyse the tactics used and the effectiveness of them? The week-long drama has left us with a mass of questions - a list growing by the day - and if we do not answer them, learn the lessons and emerge from this better prepared then we may well regret not doing so in a way I dread to think. Surely we need to look not just to see whether the procedure was carried out correctly but to see whether the procedure is correct. We were fortunate this time for the small mercy that Moat did not seem interested in targeting the general public - but what if he had been?

Before we even get to the shootings we must ask why Moat was even released from prison if staff were so concerned? Very few criminals serve a full sentence, was Moat granted early release? Even if Moat had served his full sentence, why was there no mental health input given that prison staff were so concerned? The real questions that perhaps are the most important and far reaching however concern the police who - having missed the chance to stop Moat from killing - proceeded to miss every opportunity to catch him. Having delivered a confession letter to a friend, Moat had signalled a person he trusts - yet police failed to keep the individual under observation and consequently missed Moat who returned later. An armed robbery nearby wasn't linked to Moat for a considerable time, details of his car weren't released promptly, and the photographs that were issued were mostly several years old and seemingly selected for their menacing look rather than accuracy to such an extent that when CCTV footage was eventually released - again days later - police had to point out his "significant weight loss". It was hardly a good start.

When the village of Rothbury came into the search any hope of a surprise capture rapidly evaporated. Was alerting Moat of their presence and alarming the public - initially ordering people into their homes by loud speaker - really a good idea? Was it really the most effective way of capturing Moat to launch a Hollywood-style manhunt in the Northumbrian countryside, complete with 250 armed officers, 20 armoured cars, helicopters, the RAF and Kay Burley? At the very least we wasted millions and fed Moat's ego, making him less likely to surrender and more likely to commit further crimes to live up to the image being built up, while far worse we have potentially given a blueprint to every psychopathic narcissist with longings of criminal infamy from here to Timbuktu. (We know Moat mentioned Derek Bird and will never know how that affected him).

As images of police cars speeding (why speeding anyway?) around Rothbury were beamed around the globe, I couldn't help but think how unlikely to lead to capture it all was. We cannot run an alternative tactic on the same scenario unlike in a computer model, but I genuinely think a few undercover officers and tracker dogs would have been on the trail long before the manhunt - more by luck than judgement - eventually located Moat. Genuine policing - rather than Robocop dramatics which are never there when you need them - also had its role underplayed. A farmhouse was broken into for food but not kept observed, again missing Moat making a second visit apparently to sleep there. Another break in at a nearby cottage whilst the owner was upstairs could have been another opportunity - had police following up the 999 call arrived that day. Both properties were just yards from the well known storm drain and stepping stones where Moat was found. Instead of following up these vital leads armed police patrolled schoolyards and marched around rural lanes. When eventually cornered further failure ensued with Moat's uncle and brother's offer to negotiate for police falling on deaf ears. (The quote "I have no dad, no one cares about me" will no doubt haunt them. Whatever you think of Moat you have to feel for those that did care - particularly his brother and uncle who will forever feel they could have saved Moat from himself - and for his children).

In general the whole saga has left me anything but confident in the police.

The Conservatives are generally seen and view themselves as the party of law and order. At times that spills over - as it does with other public sector professions in general among the public - into blind support for the police and refusal to criticise. We mustn't let it spill over. If we care about security and justice we must be painfully honest. In Northumbria serious mistakes were made, and only through identifying those failings can we learn from them. We cannot have a tolerance for the ineffectual, failing or incompetent, there simply isn't room for error. We were relatively lucky this time, though not universally so; next time - and it's inevitable there will be a next time - we might not be so fortunate.

*****

On the topic of justice, the Moat shootings have knocked Ken Clarke's dangerous plans to cut prison places and abolish short sentences into the long grass for now. It's temporary and will be back. The Left, and sadly Ken seems to be with them on this, often puts the cart before the horse with dire consequences. In economics they prioritise equality, forgetting you first need to create wealth in order to redistribute it. In justice the cart-horse-configuration error among the Left is most bizarre however given its total lack of logic. We all know of course that it's the supply of criminals that leads to prisoners demanding places; the left however seems to think it's the prisons fuelling demand for criminals. Pointing to statistics showing that territories with higher prison populations have correspondingly high rates of crime, they suggest imprisoning fewer people will lead to less crime. It's the same logic that says areas with high sales of rain-macs have more rain, therefore if everyone in Caernarfon burnt their rain-macs and invested in swim suits, RayBans and factor 25 sun-block then the town would turn into a Welsh speaking San Tropez. It won't. Rain will always fuel rain-mac demand, crime will always lead demand for prison places.

That's not to say we can't reduce the prison population. Firstly through analysing who is sent to prison and how effective it is compared to alternatives, and secondly through better policing, justice and sentencing. It turns out those countries with low numbers of prisoners not only have a low crime rate but also a higher rate of solving crimes and prosecution being successful. The more likely to be caught, the less likely potential criminals are to commit crime, leading to fewer crimes and thus fewer prisoners. It's the Laffer Curve. Simples, unless you're a Leftist.

Women bishops

As I have mentioned on this site before, I am a member of the Church of England. I know of course that the church's affairs do not interest everyone and I have seen in recent times that posts that are not directly and entirely about politics seem to upset some who choose to read them for some reason. So - if you're not interested in the current arguments about women bishops raging in the C of E, look away now.

I suppose it is obvious that in many aspects of life I am a conservative. I value duty and sacrifice over glamour, fashion, the new-found conventions of the politically correct day. I love our heritage in this country. I love tradition, and love the church's traditions. I loathe much of the trendy new language injected into services (and I loathe the silly logo I've shared with you above). I cherish the unbroken continuity of practice that links me via shared rites and prayers with my forefathers. Indeed, and perhaps this is a characteristically English trait, I often find myself much more moved by such things than I do by conventional sentimentality or by the mawkish moments of emotion that our newspapers tell us have captured the "national mood." So in many respects I am a traditionalist and a conservative in the Church of England. But I see no reason not to have women bishops.

First, I see no genuine Biblical objection. Those cited seem to me to be spurious - so spurious that one wonders at the motives of the otherwise thoughtful people offering them. Furthermore, if such an objection truly exists it would presumably have been irrevocably breached by the ordination of women priests. I cannot fathom the logic of those who accept women priests - from whom we in the laity receive guidance and teaching - but not women bishops. The big decision on this issue was taken some time ago, when it was rightly decided that women can be priests. The principle was decided then and the issue of women bishops inevitably flows naturally and consequentially from that.

Secondly, and this is or ought to be obvious but in the context of this discussion it does need to be said, I think that there is nothing that impairs women in taking up leadership positions. Indeed, when I was growing up I was fortunate enough to benefit from the ministry of the late Marion Mingins at St Edmundsbury Cathedral, whose gentle, thoughtful care touched the lives of many, and who went on to serve as a Chaplain to the Queen. Those who have come first in the new development of women priests have done the clergy proud - so it can hardly be said that the obvious precedent for women bishops (women priests) is bad.

I do not wish to see the Church pulled apart. I realise the deep-felt emotions held by those who disagree with me. I find this difficult, because in taking this position I find myself on opposite sides to old friends and people I like and respect. But I think that there really isn't any other proper position for one to take and I think that the debate is very important, so... there we are.

What will the climate change policy backlash look like?

One thing that strikes me more and more following the developments in climate change policy is that the politicians are storing up a huge backlash.  There is a cosy political consensus that assumes the various targets that Britain has signed up to for emissions reductions and using renewable energy are inviolate, but it doesn't have any kind of political mandate.

Families have coped for some years now with subdued growth in disposable incomes as taxes and higher housing costs and utility bills have swallowed rises in gross earnings.  The necessary fiscal adjustment will, no matter how well it is managed and regardless of the party in charge, put further pressure on household budgets.  That will make things difficult, particularly for middle to low earners.

In that context, there is a certain madness about the massive investments that policy makers are expecting the country to finance in order to meet climate change targets.  Just in the energy sector, we're talking about £139 billion to meet environmental targets by 2020 according to Citigroup Investment Research.  That is more than is needed in Germany, France and Italy combined and paying for it will require doubling profits in the sector and doubling prices.  For that reason, Citigroup's research talks about a coming "affordability crisis".

It seems almost impossible that all of the hugely expensive measures that politicians are currently planning can be maintained with resources so scarce.  I'm planning on writing a more detailed article shortly about the proposals for a Green Investment Bank, an attempt to get around investors being spooked by the prospect of an affordability crisis.  But needless to say it doesn't solve the issue, it just means more money from taxpayers' pockets and people's savings being staked on these unsustainable policies.

The Sunday Trading laws should be abolished outright

The Government rightly talk as often as possible about boosting the economy, creating jobs, helping business and returning to growth. This is an economic imperative and a political priority which is impossible to ignore. The rhetoric is there, but it concerns me that perhaps the dedication to helping the economy in practice is a bit lacking.

Now, I am more than willing to listen to practical reasons why particularly things can't or shouldn't be done. If a Minister believes that they simply couldn't find the spending cuts necessary to avoid the VAT rise, then I may disagree with them but I'll happily acknowledge that they have a practical case to make.

What I cannot understand or accept is why, given their public acceptance of the need to do everything possible to help businesses and the economy, any Government Minister would reject a proposal that would not only cost the Treasury nothing but would actually increase tax revenues by stimulating the High Street.

And yet - according to Harry Wallop of the Daily Telegraph - Business Minister Baroness Wilcox has done exactly that.

One of the biggest shopping days of the year, Boxing Day, will fall on a Sunday in 2011. Current Sunday Trading laws dictate that shops are only allowed to open for a maximum of six hours on the sabbath, which will mean Boxing Day opening hours will be drastically cut down from the 12 hours retailers would normally expect.

The retailers that survived the recession are understandably keen to seize every opportunity to do business, and the Christmas period is crucial to their sales figures. As a result, a wide coalition of business people - joined by Boris Johnson - have been campaigning for the Government to suspend the Sunday Trading laws to allow them to stay open on Boxing Day and make the most of the opportunity.

For some reason, Baroness Wilcox has rejected their proposal.

As a result, shops will be forced by law to shut their doors early even though there will undoubtedly be an enthusiastic crowd who want to continue spending money. This is heartbreaking for any business which has been through the last couple of years - they hated having to lay people off and shut shops, and they are keen to get back on with what they do best. Selling things.

Three worthy Early Day Motions

Twitterers often recommend people they think worthy of "following" on Fridays. In a similar vein I thought I'd recommend three EDMs which are, in my view, worth signing:

Julian Huppert (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge) EDM 186 Summary Care Records

I have already set out my views on the Government's u-turn on the putative nationwide NHS database. It is very wrong for the uploading of patients' medical records to continue given the enormous questions which exist about the scheme, and must be answered (many of which are being asked by GPs).

Robert Halfon (Conservative, Harlow) EDM 328 Surveillance and the Internet

As I've written here previously, Google's Street View cars did more than take pictures of streets. They allegedly mapped every single wireless internet connection in Britain, including many millions in private homes, for commercial purposes, and (in the words of the EDM) "may have failed to disclose that it was building a massive database of wi-fi networks across the UK without people's consent" - and the capture by Google Street View cars of private data transmitted via wi-fi networks is the subject of a Metropolitan police investigation.

(Rob is speaking at a Big Brother Watch event on the evening of 20 July on this topic - if you are interested in attending, please contact us)

Brian Binley (Conservative, Northampton South) EDM 406 A review of the smoking ban in pubs and clubs

Even the most puritan of anti-smokers should realise that it is unjust to impose a ban without exemptions on smoking on the workplace, including private clubs. It is draconian and unjust to ban entirely the public consumption of anything which has been lawful for hundreds of years, and remains lawful, without making proper provision for those who have been enjoying it in just these same places for decades. A properly ventilated room which staff do not have to enter would solve the demands of the anti-smoking lobby whilst allowing smokers to pursue their legal activity and prop up our ailing pubs to boot.

Two of these come from members of the new intake - who have collectively, it seems to me, swiftly got stuck into their duties with an admirable vigour and a significant sense of independence. All three of them, I think, are worthy examples of the rigorous defence of freedom one looks to Parliament to perform.

A political economy popquiz

A brief quiz on the growth of the state, how that growth was funded and our future. I will follow this up next week.

How the state has grown

Source: How Should Britain’s Government Spending and Tax Burdens be Measured?, 10 June 2009, David B. Smith, IEA

Online Surveys & Market Research

Theresa May's statement on Stop and Search

Theresa May has just made a statement to the House.

She has stated that she will not allow the continued use of Stop and Search powers contrary to law and ("more importantly") civil liberties, in the face of our Government's drubbing on section 44 in the European Court. She has issued new guidance to the police for stop and search:

• The requirement for a search to be "expedient" becomes a requirement that it be "necessary" (this one, I think, is pretty thin: "necessity" is or can be a nebulous term in the hands of those who wish to use powers)

• Suspicion is required for a search. Officers must "reasonably suspect" people of an offence before stopping and searching them - so searches must now be conducted under section 43, not section 44 (which will continue to be used for searching vehicles, but not individuals).

These guidelines will last until the conclusion of the Government's review of stop and search. They are better than the status quo, but I do not think that such a review is necessary. The last Government’s random stop and search powers systematically abused privacy and freedom, as the European Court made clear, twice.

Random stop and search should be ruled out altogether, not left hanging on an unnecessary review.

Who wants a comatose House of Commons?

At today's Prime Minister's Questions, the Speaker intervened time and again to silence the characteristic hustle and noise of parliament, and to cut off those -including the Prime Minister - he deemed to be speaking off topic. Aptly describing it as "the dullest PMQs of the year ... [p]erhaps for several years", Lloyd Evans over at Coffee House condemns John Bercow's increasing belligerence. This Speaker is obsessed with the notion that the public hates the sight of rowdy parliamentary debates, and clearly sees it as his job to prevent people having to meet with any such thing. Evans notes what it is that Bercow is putting at risk:

"One of the strange glories of the house is that it’s far too small to seat every MP. Popular debates, where eager members crowd into the cramped aisles, have the feverish hot-house mood of a cockfight or an illegal boxing match. Every head cranes forward to catch a glimpse of the action. This is healthy for politics. At its best the Commons can replicate the exhilarating unpredictability of a public meeting during a time of national crisis. And a PM who can command the chamber in full spate gains the respect of every side. The house is there to examine the mettle of its leaders under conditions of maximum stress. This means shouting. It means insults. Sometimes it means mayhem too. So be it. This is what politics is – civil war refined into rhetoric. We need to see it in its natural condition."

It's a great article, and well worth reading in full.

I worry about what our parliament will be like if the Speaker manages to get his way here. No one would object to a Speaker who intervened to ensure every question and answer is heard, but Bercow's interpretation of his role goes much further than his predecessors'.

The frequency and venom of Bercow's interventions suggests that in his ideal parliament, everyone would sit in silence as time and again a backbencher fires a quick question, and then the minister gives a quick answer. That's it.

People who said ridiculous things would no longer face sustained guffaws. Members would be prevented from devastating an argument by heckling - or from winning an argument by answering hecklers. Those who managed to capture the mood of the house would no longer be cheered loudly - nor, probably, allowed enough time or range in what they are permitted to discuss to capture that mood in the first place.

Does the public - does anyone - really want that kind of parliament? It doesn't sound much like the chamber of a vibrant democracy to me.

The first task for Bill

As ConservativeHome reports, Bill Cash has been elected unopposed as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee.

This is great news. I’ve already commented on the qualities and experience that he will bring to the role. These will prove essential in chairing a committee that I estimate already on average has to review each flagged EU document put before it in around four minutes (and even that is assuming that large numbers continue to go through on the nod).

To appreciate the scale of the task at hand, just look at the volume of laws sent to the Commons in the period since the election was called; a backlog which no committee has yet had the chance to review.

Crucially, Bill’s democratic credentials are solid. The system of scrutiny currently works badly, and I suspect the Member for Stone will have suggestions on how to improve matters, just as David Cameron has said he wants to see happen. A starter might be to tear away the veil of obscurantism. For too long the committee was obliged under its former chairman to sit in camera. The only rationale for that was shame at the way a bust system was being run, and at the antics of ministers in Brussels. Bill’s first act should be to allow the public to sit in on the sessions, so they can see for themselves how Britain’s laws were and are being made.

Daniel Kawczynski MP: The AV electoral system would unfairly create two classes of voter

By Daniel Kawczynski MP

We now know the date for the referendum when the British public get the opportunity to decide whether we change from our traditional first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system to the Alternative Vote (AV).

As co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the promotion of first-past-the-post, my views on this are somewhat obvious but always worth repeating.  First-past-the-post is tried and tested, simple, it brings about quick results, is relatively cheap, which given the economic mess left by Labour is an important consideration, and it allows voters to clearly demonstrate which party they feel should form the Government.  It is this last point where a deeply unacceptable side affect of AV becomes apparent.

When we go to the polls as a nation, the majority of us are voting to support the philosophy and policy of one political party.  Even though an individual's vote may change from election to election for varying reasons, at the end of the day when we enter the polling booth, we enter it hoping that our vote will help bring to power the party we support.  AV doesn’t essentially change this.  I can still cast just one vote and make it for the party I most favour, but herein lies the problem.  Whilst I and millions of other individuals have more or less fixed party allegiances and will only vote for one party, others will cast their alternatives, twice or maybe three times.  What AV allows is two classes of voter, those who will cast one vote and those who will have two or three bites of the cherry.

In a tight contest where no overall majority is achieved, the second preference votes are then counted up and have the same weighting as the original votes.  My key question is this, why should someone’s second preference vote, essentially the “I don’t like this candidate much, but will allow them as an alternative” count as much as my original vote?

It is this unfair weighting of votes between those who support and often campaign on behalf of a certain party and those who are happy to vote two or three times which highlights my clear concerns about AV.  This is why I will gladly be throwing my support behind retaining FPTP in the run up to the 5 May 2011.

Harry Benson: Does marriage matter? The IFS researchers should read their own research

Harry Benson is director of Bristol Community Family Trust and the author of Let's Stick Together - The relationship book for new parents.

A new study by the IFS out this morning claims that it’s not being married that influences whether couples stay together or not. It’s the kind of people who marry. The usual suspects have got very excited about this – the Guardian, the Family and Parenting Institute.

Their excitement is premature. The technical analysis in the IFS paper may be really good. But the conclusion is really wrong.

The new IFS study replicates two studies I did (1, 2) based on the Millennium Cohort dataset of 15,000 mums who had babies in the year 2000 and 2001. Because IFS use the same dataset, it’s not surprising that their main findings are identical to my own. In essence they found that if you compare two groups of 100 cohabiting and 100 married parents, 26 of the cohabiting couples split up before their child’s fifth birthday compared to 9 of the married couples. On the surface at least, the extra 17 couples represents a big and highly significant gap in outcomes.

By knocking out various background factors one by one in a sequence of models (page 10 of their paper), they have then shown how much each factor contributes to this gap along the way. The way they have done this is really neat. I found it especially interesting, for example, that having parents who split up or being a stepparent each influence the odds of staying together less than I might have expected. But the key thing is that by comparing groups with similar backgrounds – mother’s age, ethnic group, family background and education, and father’s income – they show that the gap narrows to 7 more couples in the cohabiting group. Up to this point, their analysis concurs with mine. Amongst all the major background factors, marital status has the single biggest unique effect. So far, so good.

It’s at this point that the IFS researchers go astray. The final two factors they eliminate are whether the baby was planned or not and any differences in relationship quality between the parents. That reduces the gap enough for the researchers to show that marriage and cohabitation no longer have any residual influence on stability. Hence the excited story in the papers.

Harry Benson is director of Bristol Community Family Trust and the author of Let's Stick Together - The relationship book for new parents.

A new study by the IFS out this morning claims that it’s not being married that influences whether couples stay together or not. It’s the kind of people who marry. The usual suspects have got very excited about this – the Guardian, the Family and Parenting Institute.

Their excitement is premature. The technical analysis in the IFS paper may be really good. But the conclusion is really wrong.

The new IFS study replicates two studies I did (1, 2) based on the Millennium Cohort dataset of 15,000 mums who had babies in the year 2000 and 2001. Because IFS use the same dataset, it’s not surprising that their main findings are identical to my own. In essence they found that if you compare two groups of 100 cohabiting and 100 married parents, 26 of the cohabiting couples split up before their child’s fifth birthday compared to 9 of the married couples. On the surface at least, the extra 17 couples represents a big and highly significant gap in outcomes.

By knocking out various background factors one by one in a sequence of models (page 10 of their paper), they have then shown how much each factor contributes to this gap along the way. The way they have done this is really neat. I found it especially interesting, for example, that having parents who split up or being a stepparent each influence the odds of staying together less than I might have expected. But the key thing is that by comparing groups with similar backgrounds – mother’s age, ethnic group, family background and education, and father’s income – they show that the gap narrows to 7 more couples in the cohabiting group. Up to this point, their analysis concurs with mine. Amongst all the major background factors, marital status has the single biggest unique effect. So far, so good.

It’s at this point that the IFS researchers go astray. The final two factors they eliminate are whether the baby was planned or not and any differences in relationship quality between the parents. That reduces the gap enough for the researchers to show that marriage and cohabitation no longer have any residual influence on stability. Hence the excited story in the papers.

The artists of the possible

Today’s Independent carries speculation about a pending reshuffle amongst the mandarins of the Foreign Office.

FCO staff I have known have been of a high quality, and those at the top tend to know their onions. That’s how they got there.

But there is one persistent and strange failing; they have never seemed quite as on the ball as Treasury officials when it comes to the European Union; and after a posting over there – how can I diplomatically put this? - often seem a little too fond of the moules et frites.

The FCO has two key problems with respect to Brussels. One is that it has become trapped in its thinking, and - despite the 1980s - continues to see its own role within the EU in terms of the management of British decline.

A real legacy for William Hague would be to end this defeatism.

The second problem has been some of the staff themselves. Trained up and promoted through this atmosphere, it has steeped into their souls and fogged up their thinking. So Mr Hague also has the task, if he is to find the solution, of bringing in the right people to jolt the staff out of this rut. I would suggest, for instance, that such a shortlist does not include former heads of UKREP, or British diplomats who have been critical of the Conservatives seeking to leave a political group that carries a federalist agenda (the EPP).

For long years, the Foreign Office has been in denial about the loss of sovereignty to Brussels, and the steady erosion of its own role to the emerging EU diplomatic corps. It is too competent to have held this position through incompetence, so it must have been a conscious choice. Therein, I suggest, lies the Foreign Secretary’s primary task over the coming years; to inject some backbone into Britain’s representatives overseas, and more worryingly, at home. And perhaps the first step is to borrow someone from the Treasury side of King Charles Street to make it happen.

Constitutional Conservatism is incompatible with Lib-Dem-ery

I am not a Democrat - a believer that the People rule themselves, and that the People's Will provides the moral underpinning of legitimate policy - or a believer in the international variant of the Democrat view, the Self Determination doctrine.  I am a constitutional Conservative.  I believe in constitutional monarchy, an unelected upper chamber, a self-sustaining oligarchic judiciary, a non-politically-partisan civil service, a broad church state religion, a constitution supported primarily (as all constitutions are) and explicitly (as few constitutions are) by the organic practice, traditions, self-belief and duty of an Establishment.

As such, I have always regarded Liberal Democrats and their Liberal Party forebears as dangerous.  They have always sat for me with radical and reactionary groups such as Marxists and Greens and Absolute Monarchists whose goal was to overthrow the institutions and practices I held most dear and considered most important - the only difference being that the Lib Dems, because of the older, saner, history of their party had a respectability that these other radicals and reactionaries lacked.

In contrast, I always felt that Conservatives and the traditional Labour Left were engaged in an honourable and important debate on an accepted common constitutional playing field.  The Labour Left were our honourable opponents whose arguments deserved a hearing and refutation (or, occasionally, acceptance).  The Liberal Democrats were dangerous radicals to be excluded from the serious discussion.

The Census

Before the election, the Conservative Party's position on the forthcoming Census (with which Big Brother Watch entirely agreed) was that it is

"increasingly invasive and intrusive... [and] will erode public support, cost more and result in a less accurate survey.

Just because the Government has the legal powers to ask these questions does not give the state the licence to ask anything they want."

So said Nick Hurd, then shadow Cabinet Office spokesman.

That is a very different position to that taken by our new Cabinet Office Minister... Nick Hurd. The man responsible for administering the Census, Glen Watson, confirms that now that the Conservatives are in government, plans for the census are... entirely unchanged. Mr Hurd's urgings about scaling back the census seem to have fallen on his own deaf ears. Francis Maude says that

"The expenses already committed to the census mean any changes are difficult."

I had to check my trusty French dictionary to ensure I didn't misspell fait accompli.

The 2011 Census Mr Hurd so decried, and will now enforce, is 32 pages long (frequently duplicating data already held by the authorities on databases such as the electoral register, school records, tax returns and GP information). It requires you to disclose your proficiency in English, your health, when you last worked, disclosure of the identity of your overnight visitor(s), the kind of central heating you have, and makes the entirely hollow but nevertheless bullying threat of fines of £1,000 for non-compliance.

Last time (in 2001): 390,000 people declared themselves Jedi and 3 million people refused to comply, and as there were fewer than 100 prosecutions, non-compliance comes pretty much entirely without repercussions.

Sounds about right.

**UPDATE** this was discussed yesterday on Radio 4's PM programme - you can listen here.

On not being homophobic

It has become common in public discourse and policy debate routinely to describe those believing that practicing homosexuality is immoral as "homophobic" or "anti-gay".  I believe these descriptions are wrong, offensive, and lead to oppression, and should be challenged.  I shall explain why.

The faith and folly of the Brussels elite

In this week's Economist, the departing Charlemagne columnist reflects on "the faith and folly of the Brussels elite". He explains that Brussels officials really do want more Europe because they believe nationalism is the greatest of evils. They have faith that the European project is eliminating nationalism and that "the existence of the EU is a bulwark against fresh horrors".

In particular:

Brussels insiders are convinced that critics of the EU are nationalists. They are wrong. As he ends his Brussels posting, this critic accepts that many of Europe’s worst follies can be blamed on the selfishness and cynicism of governments, not Brussels bureaucrats. The EU holds nationalism in check, and that is a high calling. Charlemagne believes in the EU. On balance it has swept away barriers to internal trade and the free movement of people. It has modernised poor regions. It has anchored southern and eastern Europe in the free world: an historic achievement.

Of course the EU has delivered free trade within its borders - it is a customs union after all - but anyone who thinks the EU genuinely promotes global free trade should look at the TARIC database. TARIC (Integrated Tariff of the European Communities) includes not just tariffs, but also tariff suspensions, tariff quotas and tariff preferences. You might enjoy searching the database for wheat for example. Do click through and survey the subdivisions of each tariff, noting provision for variations according to country of origin or destination. 

Richard Cobden might well wonder why he bothered with the Anti-Corn Law League.

Current debate on immigration demonstrates that EU member states have not fully surrendered border controls, but this is, of course, in the pipeline.

If the outgoing Charlemagne defines nationalism, and it appears he does, as comprising trade and migration barriers, then the EU has merely elevated nationalism to the level of the European continent, has it not? 

Serendipitously, I just finished a book which surveys the issue of European nationalism. Omnipotent Government - the Rise of the Total State and Total War (1944) is perhaps a little strident but then the author, Ludwig von Mises, was an economist of Jewish descent, born into the Austro-Hungarian empire, who predicted the collapse of the Mark, the Great Depression and the rise of German political radicalism before being forced to flee his homeland via Switzerland to the USA.

Mises' thesis, in a nutshell, is that aggressive economic nationalism is the inevitable consequence of increasing government intervention in the economy. For reasons he explains, he calls this ultimate cause "etatism":

The most important event in the history of the last hundred years is the displacement of liberalism by etatism. 

Etatism appears in two forms: socialism and interventionism. Both have in common the goal of subordinating the individual unconditionally to the state, the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion. 

... 

Etatism assigns to the state the task of guiding the citizens and of holding them in tutelage. It aims at restricting the individual's freedom to act...

This might be a good moment to turn to the database of European Union law: EUR-Lex. It is gigantic of course, but allow me to point you to, for example:

• "Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 580/2010 of 29 June 2010 amending Regulation (EC) No 452/2007 imposing a definitive anti-dumping duty on imports of ironing boards originating, inter alia, in Ukraine": PDF.
• "Commission Regulation (EU) No 547/2010 of 22 June 2010 establishing the standard import values for determining the entry price of certain fruit and vegetables": PDF.
• "JOINT DECLARATION BY THE COUNCIL AND THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE MEMBER STATES MEETING WITHIN THE COUNCIL of 5 May 2003 on ‘the social value of sport for young people’": PDF.
• "COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION of 28 April 2010 on the research joint programming initiative ‘A healthy diet for a healthy life’": PDF.

These are simply examples which come immediately to hand: by all means search for yourself.

In his section on "Peace Schemes", Mises writes presciently of our situation:

The main obstacle to the establishment of a supernational customs union with internal free trade among the member nations is the fact that such a customs union requires unlimited supremacy of the supernational authorities and an almost complete annihilation of the national governments if etatism is to be retained. Under present conditions it makes little difference whether the constitu­tion of the suggested union of the Western democracies is shaped according to the legal pattern of unitary or of federal government. There are only two alternatives open: trade barriers among the member states, with all their sinister consequences, economic nationalism, rivalries and discord; or free trade among the member states and (whatever the constitutional term adopted for it) strictly centralized government. In the first case there would be not union but disunion. In the second case the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain would be virtually reduced to the status of provincial governors, and Congress and Parliament to provincial assemblies. It is unlikely that the Americans or the British will easily agree to such a solution of the problem.

The policies of government interference with business and of national planning beget economic nationalism. The abandonment of economic nationalism, an indispensable condition for the establishment of lasting peace, can only be achieved through a unification of government, if people do not want to return to the system of unhampered market economy. This is the crux of the matter.

Now, I can't help noticing that we live in a time of considerable government interference with business, that is, etatism. People are losing faith in capitalism, despite general acceptance of the argument that interest rates were too low for too long, a phenomenon manufactured by institutions of government. Business failure in banking has been comprehensively socialised, the banks still aren't lending as the authorities wish and yet bonuses were paid within taxpayer-subsidised institutions. Google returns pages of mainstream results for "euro collapse". There is a democratic deficit in the EU and its member states. Union leaders talk of strikes.

And amongst all this, the Brussels elite desire more power and central control, with Jean-Claude Trichet calling for a "quantum leap" in EU economic governance. 

At least he is consistent with Mises.

The Brussels elite certainly have some historic achievements behind them, but I can't help wondering whether they put their faith in the wrong god. Perhaps their folly has been to choose etatism plus the unification of European government when a better choice would have been a post-war return to unhampered social cooperation, that is, classical liberalism.

Let's hope their greatest achievements do not turn out to be merely raising economic nationalism to the continental level and an historic faux pas.

Further reading

• Mises, Omnipotent Government - the Rise of the Total State and Total War (1944) (Amazon, read online, download)
• Mises, The Causes of the Economic Crisis, and Other Essays Before and After the Great Depression (1923-1946) (buy, download)
• Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (1944) (buy, Wikipedia, read online)
• Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) (Amazon: Volume 1 - The Spell of Plato, Volume 2 - Hegel and Marx, Google books: Volume 1, Volume 2)
• Burnham, The Managerial Revolution - What is Happening in the World (1941) (buy, Wikipedia, marxists.org)
• Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835-1840) (Amazon, Google Books - the relevant passage starts on page 389)
• Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict over Creativity, Enterprise and Progress (1999) (Amazon)

Letter from America

By Iain Anderson, Director of Cicero Consulting – from New York.

Spending the last week in Washington DC and New York, I have been constantly ‘catching up’ with London on my emails.

But it’s not just the time difference where being in the US means catch up.

In my various conversations with policymakers and policy watchers here in the US in recent days, there is no doubt that a big component in the November mid terms will be whether or not the deficit ‘hawks’ win out against those who want to continue a State stimulus.

Today’s New York Times editorial calls for continued State spending. It says: “Republicans and several Democrats have made the argument that cutting the deficit is more important than spurring the economy. The argument is wrong..”

The decision of the NY Times to come out in favour of continued stimulus comes in a week when we discovered the US shed another 125,000 jobs this month – and there is no doubt New York as a City is hurting. I can see from the cab drivers, restaurants and shops that the US consumer is watching the pennies.

I have spent the week explaining to US policymakers, among other things, about the outcome of the UK election and I had expected to see from Democratic strategists a more powerful defence of continued spending in response. But surprisingly it is just not there.

Much of the debate on fiscal contraction vs continued stimulus post the recent G20 meeting has been characterised by European commentators as the US pitched against the UK and Germany. But in Washington and New York the debate continues to rage.

I now have a sense that Obama will tack to the right following the mid terms – just as Clinton did in 1994. I see all the signs of this in the Democratic rhetoric.

And if that does happen – David Cameron and George Osborne may suddenly have a powerful ally in the White House on deficit reduction plans. The answers lies with the American people.

Happy 4th July!

The Right is wiser than the Left

In his column for yesterday’s Telegraph Charles Moore listed some of the policy areas where the Right had been vindicated in the last ten years:

• “We pointed out that Robert Mugabe would be a Marxist tyrant even before he reached office. It took about 20 years of murder and destruction before this truth was universally acknowledged.”
• “We warned that mass immigration put the worst strain on the poorest people. At the time, this was "racist"; today, it is common ground between the parties.”
• “We said that Gordon Brown's public finances would eventually produce disaster, while sunnier politicians gabbled about "sharing the proceeds of growth".

I’d also suggest that the Right has been vindicated on the importance of family structure, the power of incarceration (a lesson we are unlearning it seems) and the folly of the €uro.

In the years to come...

• We’ll be proven right about the value of school choice;
• The superiority of trade over aid as a cure for global poverty (in fact this may already be won intellectually);
• The danger of trying to ‘green’ our economies with immature and expensive technologies; and
• The fact that individual nation states choosing to work together in successions of one-off partnerships are our only hope of tackling rogue states (and other great global challenges), rather than do-nothing, talk-a-lot multinational organisations.

The 2010 Times Guide to the House of Commons is out - and this year it's mischievous

I love books, especially of the political variety, and the Times Guide to the House of Commons is an essential reference book that any self-professed politico needs to purchase after every general election.

I have now bought my copy of the 2010 edition, which will sit on my bookshelf alongside well-thumbed copies going back to 1979, and I am delighted to report that it is as comprehensive as ever.

Basic biographical details for defeated candidates (dropped in 2005) have returned and the extended pieces at the front by Times columnists and others (including Paul Goodman of this parish) cover more ground than ever before. Tim noted yesterday the finding of the paper's Sam Coates about how much each vote cost the Conservative Party.

There are a selection of colour photographs from the campaign as well as bar charts alongside each constituency profile showing how the parties performed against each other - which are to scale, unlike those often seen on political leaflets...

But the most striking innovation is that the biographies of each MP begin with several sentences summarising their politics, personality and interests. In a way not dissimilar to the old Roth's Parliamentary Profiles, Greg Hurst and his colleagues at the Times have created soundbites for which some MPs I fear will never forgive them.

Here's just a taster of how some of the parliamentarians have been branded:

• Nigel Adams (Con) - "Professional Yorkshireman"
• Adrian Bailey (Lab) - "Dull, even by the standards of librarians"
• Ben Bradshaw (Lab) - "Deft lightweight"
• Andy Burnham (Lab) - "Trying unsuccessfully to shed lightweight image"
• Nadine Dorries (Con) - "Feisty, unpredictable, publicity-hungry, populist blogger"
• Richard Harrington (Con) - "Larger than life; a less fogey Nick Soames"
• John Mann (Lab) - "Rarely misses passing bandwagon"
• David Miliband (Lab) - "Erudite on policy, but questions exist over his people skills"
• Andy Slaughter (Lab) - "Manner reminiscent of an allotments committee chairman"
• Mike Wood (Lab) - "Unimpressive"

Are ticket touts entrepeneurs or criminals?

Of the MPs to win one of the twenty places in the Private Member's Bill ballot, most coverage has been secured so far by Tory MP Phillip Hollobone for his bid to ban the burqa.

But today - with the Wimbledon ladies' final taking place - Labour MP Sharon Hodgson has got some coverage for her Sale of Tickets (Sporting and Cultural Events) Bill, which seeks to outlaw the practice of ticket touting.

She won second place in the ballot and her bill is scheduled to get its Second Reading next January.

She explains her reasoning for introducing the bill thus:

"What I want is legislation that makes it a criminal offence to buy up large numbers of tickets, with a view to selling them at a profit. If that wasn't allowed, people wouldn't do it."

I vividly remember when this issue came up in the early 1990s hearing the outspoken libertarian-minded Tory MP Teresa Gorman exclaiming that tickets touts should be praised for their enterprise - and my instinct is to agree with that point of view.

As long as a ticket - or any other item for that matter - is not sold on the basis of it being for the exclusive use of a named individual, why shouldn't the owner be able to sell it on? And if they bought it at a price which is effectively below the market rate and are able to make a profit when they sell it on, should they not be congratulated on making a wise investment? 

Mrs Hodgson appears to have a basic objection to an individual buying items and selling them on at a profit. Last time I checked, this was the basic tenet of the capitalist system in which we live (and the system which created the glorious £999 TV which she claimed on the taxpayer, according to the Telegraph).

It is not entirely surprising that a Labour MP should view profit as a dirty word. But if this is the beginning of her quest towards a socialist utopia, where will it end?

A brief question arising from yesterday's suicide bomb murders at the Data Darbar shrine in Lahore

We read often that British or western foreign policy is the cause of terrorism claimed in the name of Islam.  (If you doubt it, try a simple google search.)

A question, then, for those who say so.

Why do they believe the Data Darbar shrine in Lahore - at which two suicide bombers killed dozens of people yesterday evening by detonating explosive-laden belts backed with ball bearings - to be a crucible of western foreign policy?

Cash '22

Bill Cash is a force of Parliamentary nature. I’m not surprised that there is a rumour circulating (as reported on yesterday’s ConHome) that there may be new moves to nobble the 1922 Committee, because some people wouldn’t like to see him chair Parliament’s EU scrutiny committee.  He’d be good at it.

Let me immediately declare an interest. I’ve known Bill for a decade. Indeed, I first cut my political teeth working at the European Foundation, an organisation that was at the forefront of campaigns to educate parliamentarians and the public on developments in Brussels. But it’s precisely that understanding that leads me to the conclusion that he would make a fantastic chairman.

He is after all supremely well qualified. A constitutional lawyer, he is a past Shadow Attorney General and has previously been a legal adviser to London’s Quebec legation – an office that knows a thing or two about federalism in practice. Importantly, for a committee that ranges so widely in its subject matter, he has expertise in a wide range of subjects.  He has - incredibly - been a member of the committee since 1985, that is to say even before the Single European Act. In short, he knows his stuff.

Choosing the right chairman for the EU scrutiny committee will be important. It is one of the most critical committees, so much so that under Labour the public were banned from watching. The sheer volume of laws going through it is massive. One past member recollects that in the time it took for him to turn to a colleague to ask a question, several items had been passed through on the nod by the committee including one he intended to challenge. A good chairman would be able to help sift the nuggets from the mass of grit.

The Times won't even let me pay to view its website

Today is the day when The Times' paywall finally comes into being and anyone wanting to read the paper's content on its website has to pay in order to do so.

I registered last month to view the site as part of the free trial and this morning got the message that anyone will now get logging on to their website - ie that it is now "available exclusively by subscription".

They are expected to lose vast swathes of online readers as a result - and they've certainly lost one here this morning - as they won't even accept my money to allow me access to the site, as the error message I got below demonstrates:

(Needless to say my bank details were correct, and I have merely obscured them in the above image).

Then, I emailed the helpdesk to get the somewhat unhelpful autoreply:

"Thank you for your email.  This has been passed onto the Customer Services team for their attention.  Should your enquiry require a response you will be contacted within two working days."

Not an auspicious start...

9am update:

Another email arrives in my inbox from the helpdesk:

"Dear Times Online User,

Thank you for your email.  Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control, the World Pay payment site is unavailable at the moment. This means you can still register but we are unable to process any payments for our pay for view sites. This should be rectified shortly and we thank you for your patience."

10.30am update:

It has finally managed to accept my payment - I'm in!

Jonathan Isaby

NIgel Jones: The re-introduction of fact-based teaching is to be welcomed - and here are ten facts every pupil should know

By Nigel Jones

Yesterday's speech by Conservative Schools Minister Nick Gibb pledging to restore fact-based knowledge of History and English literature in our classrooms is to me one of the most heartening statements made by a Government Minister since the  Coalition took power.

For historians, and indeed for authors, the thirteen long years of Labour misrule has only seen 'the melancholy, long withdrawing roar' (to quote Matthew Arnold) of education, intelligence and knowledge from our schools.  So determined did Labour appear to diminish knowledge of the key facts of British history and the great works of English literature that in my darker hours I began to believe that a conspiracy was afoot deliberately to turn the country (to quote Martin Amis) into a 'moronic inferno'.

In truth, it probably wasn't as conscious as that.  But it was certainly the product of a feeble feeling of Guilt about Britain's past. A feeling that is widespread among the Guardian-reading, Islington-dwelling chattering classes, but is almost wholly absent among those to whom the likes of Polly Toynbee talks down.

It's not that there was no hunger for history, or thirst for the great classic stories of our literature. On the contrary, the explosion of interest in the subject - as seen by the popularity of such intelligent  (and Conservative!) TV historians as David Starkey and Niall Ferguson, the top ratings for shows like 'Who Do You Think You Are?' and the evergreen love for Jane Austen screen revivals shows that a passion for history and literature is as great - if not greater - than ever. It is just that (to quote John Milton) 'the hungry sheep look up but are not fed'.

Satisfied now?

And so it comes to this.

I've slept in my office a few times...when I was a student...and I'd just moved out of one house and not yet moved into another.  I didn't feel particularly dignified.  But then I wasn't an MP, and hence so beneath contempt that no-one felt I had any dignity left to lose, and thought it was worth paying vastly more for a surveillance system to watch over me than any plausible estimate of the amount I might "over-claim" if given the trust, license, discretion and benefit of the doubt that my station and role implied.