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| Politics, PR and hack philosophy from A Guy Called Donald. But definitely no blogging. Probably. | |
29.9.05Gone mushrooming...... back after the weekend. I'd like to tell you where, but then I'd have to kill you. Seen the price of a kilo of porcini these days?I'll leave you with this: The enrolment of a dog on the electoral roll may highlight the lack of security in New Zealand’s voting system, says a Massey University political historian. Let's have more votes for mongrels. As long as Fido promised not to vote BNP (that's two barks for No), it's one electoral reform we could all get behind. 27.9.05Open-mic ranting at The SharpenerThings are a bit slow here at the moment, mostly because I'm busy on my co-editing role at The Sharpener. First up: running this new regular Sharpener feature. If you're armed with a 300-word opinion and fancy an audience, leave a message in the comment box here or there, or email me: fairvote AT gmail DOT com.Back here tomorrow. Maybe... 25.9.05Blag a bottleSomething for the weekend from me at The Sharpener. Mmmmm. Drink it up.23.9.05Manchester alertAnyone know what's going on at Manchester airport?UPDATE 10.10: Terminals One and Two are closed. One man "carrying a package" has been shot with a Taser gun after resisting arrest. Wide cordon and "very large numbers of police and bomb squad", according to Five Live. UPDATE 10.45: Five Live reporting a man arrested under the Terrorism Act after "loitering near the tail section of a plane", and a controlled explosion on the tarmac. Two terminals closed and several flight delayed. UPDATE 10.50: Greater Manchester Police statement here. UPDATE 11.05: The man arrested is reportedly of Middle-Eastern appearance and was "waving a black suitcase and shouting about Allah" when he was arrested. Does this sound like a terrorist? Or a mentalist? UPDATE 11.10: More here. UPDATE 11.15: Jamie asks some questions here. UPDATE 11.40: Airport reopens, subject to severe flight delays. An eyewitness report from a pilot confirms the details above. How long until someone mentions security lapses, the apron and Whistleblower in the same breath? 22.9.05Forget GermanySome rear-guard PR-puffery from me at The Sharpener. Enjoy.Sell, sell, sellAnd I was just about to consider flying again. Oh, well: At least I haven't got shares in Airbus.21.9.05Get them young for 2012In further news of corporate welfare, the National Lottery's "Go For Gold" London 2012 scratchcard is selling faster than any new scratchcard since 2002:Dianne Thompson, Chief Executive of Camelot comments: "We are delighted..." Perhaps not so delighted are some of this lot: * The 37% of 12–15 year-olds who play scratchcard games, or just maybe that's as high as 61% of comprehensive school kids. * The 3.5% of 12–15 year-olds who admit to having spent their bus fare or dinner money on scratchcards. * The disproportionately large C2DE socio-economic group of scratchcard players. Still, at least the kids here in Hackney will have something to show for their empty pockets and rumbling bellies: the borough will be a peachy place to grow up when the sponsors have taken their cut and built us a velodrome and a hockey centre from the change. Caveat in response to a question from Paul Are the kids to blame? Well, little scrotes will always find unsavoury things to spend their money on. What's the point in being young otherwise? Fine, I wouldn't dream of killing all their fun, nor that of their parents. I just think it isn't the job of government to sponsor redistribution away from under-16s and the poor towards the very rich and privileged. That's what we have corporations for, after all. Of course, when some of these kids go on to fail at school, because they can't concentrate on an empty stomach or because daddy has gambled away the money for the Science Museum trip, it'll be government (i.e. us) again that cleans up the mess. Another corporate cost externalized to the public purse. 20.9.05London bus bomb theory still not watertightFrom the BBC:The suicide bombers who attacked London on 7 July staged a practice run nine days before the bombings, police say. The accompanying picture on the BBC site shows three men of South Asian descent, so bus-bomber Hussain was doubtless one of them (Lindsay was black Jamaican). So, following several posts on this in July (including here where I first discovered the closure of the Northern Line Bank branch on the morning of the 7th), I still have two questions: 1. If Hussain was indeed involved in the dummy run in late June, and he has been sighted on CCTV at his target station (as Danny Shaw claims above), which station was it? Is there any reason why we shouldn't be told? Or does the BBC correspondent have it wrong? The wording above is curious: on the stations that were later bombed. No stations were actually bombed directly. Remember the initial confusion as the wounded were streaming out of both ends of the trains, and so from two different stations? The Edgware Road bomb was close, but none of the others. 2. How still to explain the one hour time-lag between the first three bombs and the last? Couldn't he have boarded another train? Or taken any bus outside King's Cross station? From my (entirely public-domain) knowledge of the evidence, I still favour a "wavering mettle theory" on the part of the fourth bomber. I wonder if they have been able to track his phone calls that morning. 19.9.05No atheists, please, we're ChristianYou've probably come here looking for a post. Unfortunately I'm busy today, so you are going to write one for me. On primary school admissions criteria. Here's the question. What's the difference between this:[Preference will be given to] Children whose parents are committed members of and regularly worship in a local Anglican Church (Church of England) or children whose parents are committed members of, and regularly worship in local churches and chapels of other Christian denominations. Your priest/minister will be required to complete a church attendance form in support of your application... And this: [Preference will be given to] Children whose race is of white European origin or whose parents are of white European racial origin. In the event of undersubscription, children at least one of whose parents is of white European origin will be considered. Your geneticist will be required to complete a proof-of-race form in support of your application... I'm disqualifying in advance answers that note you can choose your religion but not your race, because 4-year-olds can do no such thing. Unless, that is, you are prepared to justify punishing infants for the choices of their parents. But then you'd also be happy to punish white women who chose to have children with black men, wouldn't you? Extra credits all round for working in religious ghettos and Plessy v Ferguson. Fire away... 16.9.05Education for saleLord knows, the planet has enough left-policemen already, but allow me a quick thought on the campaign for "free" education, and the recent slating of NUS President Kat Fletcher (details here). My problem is this: these same students claiming membership of "a united left in the student movement" are campaigning for Top Shop workers, binmen and street cleaners to chip in for the education of middle-class kids and the future-rich. They accuse Fletcher, in her tacit support for top-up fees, of supporting an "anti-working class policy".Typically, the student lefties have it backasswards.. In fact, a left-wing stance would surely be one of these two: 1. Agree that graduate taxation, in the form of top-up fees or whatever, is the fairest way to ensure the richer beneficiaries of tertiary education are the ones who pay. University education, after all, is more a private than a public good, and there's no reason my postman should fund 2008's merchant bankers. 2. Continue the campaign for "free" [sic] education, with one addition. Make the explicit claim that top-up fees are only to be dismantled if the poor and low-income families are taken out of paying tax altogether, with a rise in the personal allowance to around £15,000. It's not enough to shout "tax the rich" without an explicit denial that they would support any change that placed an additional financial burden on the poor. Fletcher missed her chance to skewer the pseudos in a needlessly apologetic Guardian column. But then she is a politician, after all. 15.9.05Galloway and Hitchens, New York, 14 September 2005Go and read this eyewitness account of the Rumble-in-the-Jungle-for-politics-geeks. Now. David T has links too. Back tomorrow.14.9.05An American in HaitiIf the UN-armed death squads don't get ya, the forces ofSome of you may not know that Kevin Pina was arrested in Haiti this past Friday. Pina is an American citizen, an international journalist and documentary film maker, and heads up the Haiti Information Project. Pina previewed his latest film, “Haiti: Betrayal of Democracy” in Washington D.C. back in July. More here and here. A happy ending here, but it's just the same old shit for the people of Haiti. 13.9.05Flat taxes and oppositionalismVia Justin, IPPR director Nick Pearce, writing in the New Statesman, flat opposes the flat tax. He's right to be sceptical of the trickle-down, "voodoo economics" of the ASI's figures (pdf), and that Eastern European examples are hardly applicable to the UK. But he's still wrong about the tax.1. As Owen explains, the effect of widening the tax base (to include, for example, all income from capital, all capital gains, including on housing, all benefits-in-kind) could have a far greater progressive effect than a largely toothless and easily avoided 40% top rate. 2. Pearce also fails to consider that the tax would only be acceptable to the left if introduced with a high tax-free allowance. So, his claim that a flat tax punishes the poor is plain wrong. In fact, any just flat taxation system (even that proposed by the Adam Smith Institute) would leave the poor paying no income tax at all. 3. Pearce is right that simplicity is a key advantage of the flat tax, but he dismisses this far too easily. Forget reducing tax-collecting bureaucracy and increasing transparency for a second — he misses the major plus. Piecemeal reform of the current system isn’t ever going to get very far. Raising the headline rates is political suicide; closing “loopholes” can always be presented as increasing tax. Each would have to be justified along the way. However, support a flat tax and the opposite applies: each exemption would have to be scrutunized and justified. The dynamic of the debate, the framing of the argument changes completely. How could a politician extol the flat tax, then introduce wheezes for high-income earners to get out of it. The chances are he couldn’t: it would be politically impossible. Path dependency matters, and the path we’re on right now is only going to lead to tinkering at the edges of taxing the rich. Lefties sceptical about this need to go away and read some modern evolutionary economics. 4. He presents the debate as a false dichotomy between a "socially just" progressive system and the flat tax. In fact, there's no dichotomy here at all. There is an infinite number of taxation options. A properly "progressive" tax would calculate deductions at each level of income based on the decreasing marginal utility gained from a pound earned. Nothing magically happens at the 10p, 22p and 40p in the pound boundaries to make those marginal utilities ratchet down. The progressive ideal is unachievable: we're only talking about different second-best solutions. The flat tax isn't inherently more or less just than our "progressive" system — the justice is entirely in the application. 5. Finally, Pearce clings unapologetically to the line that government is the friend of the poor. He should read a bit of history. It was the market that crushed feudalism in England after the Black Death and the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. It's the market that prevails in every rich country in ther world today. From government siding with the landlords in the fourteenth century, to various experiments in state-sponsored impoverishment in the twentieth, it ought to be clear by now that the state isn't the unequivocal friend of the poor. Pearce should flick through the rest of the NS issue he writes in: bureaucratic lies from the DTI; failure at every level in New Orleans; allegations of DfID "losing" £18 million in Ghana. Let's try a thought experiment: say that the 12.9.05If I were Home Secretary...Why, I'd immediately sack myself, as my contribution to DK's kitchen cabinet suggests:The Home Office is nothing more than a sclerotic hangover from centuries of repressive bureaucratic internal security. It does the stuff that loyal knights used to do, with added laptops. At least they weren't shy about giving it its proper name in the USSR; we pussyfoot around with a cuddly sounding pseudonym. But it can't justify its existence without introducing endless policies, all of which have the sole aim of extending control, curtailing freedom, or (even better) both. Its existence is nothing more than a temptation to managerialist politicians to do something when in fact they ought to be doing exactly nothing, aside from upholding the principles and practice of centuries of law and jurisprudence. Credit where it's due: the technical inspiration for this first came from the unrivalled Alex. LDP wins (again), so what?So, Japan's LDP confirmed the post-war return to "business as usual" with predictable victory in yesterday's general election. So far, so dull. The defeat in Hiroshima of celebrity blogger and internet entrepreneur Takafumi Horie by an excommunicated member of the LDP old guard was perhaps the closest things got to a Portillo moment. The Diet has a few more women (now 43) and the average age has come down a bit. Postal services privatization will now be a shoo-in.But for PR geeks, there's something else: the system itself (summarised here): Each voter casts two ballots, writing in the name of an individual candidate for the single-seat district, and writing in the name of a party for the proportional representation constituency. In fact, calling the second vote a "proportional representation" vote is misleading. These "PR" votes, just as in Italy, are parallel votes (cast alongside the single-member votes, counted separately for separate allocations of seats), rather than compensatory, as in proper PR systems and the AV+ proposals for the UK. So, plenty of vote–seat mismatch, unfair rewards for regional concentrations of strength – the usual complaints. The second obnoxious feature is the party lists: closed not open, with voters effectively only able to pick between candidates in the event of a party offering no preference. A system that ossifies and constitutionalises the primacy of (synthetic) parties. In short, not a system reform-minded Brits ought to be looking to for inspiration. 9.9.05New Orleans, meet Naples '44Via Tim, another Tim (Garton Ash) on anarchy in Europe and New Orleans:You think the looting, rape and armed terror that emerged within hours in New Orleans would never happen in nice, civilised Europe? Think again. It happened here, all over our continent only 60 years ago. Read... Norman Lewis's account of Naples in 1944 He's wrong, twice: 1. Lewis's masterpiece, Naples '44 does recount the breakdown of order after the Allied invasion of Italy: petty crime, prostitution, kleptomania, freebooting, black-marketeering. Survival, yes, but Lewis's tale isn't one about the end of civilisation From p. 80: I have come to the conclusion that the people of Naples know nothing – and care nothing – for the life of the countryside around them. They have crowded together in their human rookeries to life the affable, rootless life of the soft city There's plenty more in that vein. On the flip side, the corruption, petty irrationality and outright barbarity of the agents of officialdom, Garton Ash's "good guys", troubles Lewis much more. From p. 130: The French colonial troops are on the rampage again. Whenever they take a town or a village, a wholesale rape of the population takes place. From p.81: People's names got on the Black List for all sorts of reasons, most of them absurd, and once a name was on the list it seemed impossible to remove it... My own view was that half the prison population should never have been inside, and were there through the breakdown of justice. 2. Which brings me to New Orleans. Here, yesterday: Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water. Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway... Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies. Here's a scary parallel that Garton Ash misses: the behaviour of agents of the state when democratic scrutiny breaks down. As John B reported, on the media reaction to Katrina: All the murdering and the raping in New Orleans? Mostly made up by an unscrupulous press, then disseminated widely because it was both a good story and one that fitted well with the appropriate cultural myths Looking in the wrong direction; by mistake or on purpose, makes no difference. And that state of nature? Less Hobbesian than Kafkaesque. UPDATE 10/9: The story that police effectively trapped survivors in the city of New Orleans has been questioned in the comments box. Confirmation, including an acceptance that it's true from Gretna Police Dept., is here. 8.9.05Louder for those at the backNot Uzbekistan, not yet anyway. The "liberal state", part one: New Orleans (via):Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people. From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it. Part two: Brussels: ...we now possess many hard-fought rights such as the right to privacy, the right to property, the right to free speech and the right to life. Corral, control, coerce: it comes as easy as breathing. The left and flat taxesSomething from me today at The Sharpener. Go revel in the wonkery. Back here tomorrow.A personal act of UnionHeartfelt commiserations to fans of the England football team from everyone here at Fair Vote Watch (i.e. me). It was a valiant effort in Belfast last night. There's not a lot you can do when your opponents can call on players from Motherwell, Peterborough and Hull City. There's no shame in losing by such a narrow margin, faced with that kind of class. Northern Ireland didn't get to 116th in the world without something, well, a little special.See you all at Hampden in November. I'll be the loudest whistler on Mount Florida when GSTQ pipes up. 7.9.05Shafted, but you won't feel a thingIf you have any interest at all in:1. Democracy 2. Civil liberties 3. Justice, fair play, cold beer, and the British way of life go and read this. Now. If you don't: why the hell do you read this blog? Liberal-hate-porn? Take me to your dealerFiled under: being in touch with life on the street, guy. David Davis:"Drugs fuel crime. The fact that an ecstasy tablet can be bought for less than a can of Coke is a shocking indictment of Labour's absolute failure to tackle the scourge of drugs." Like, where? 6.9.05Inherited lunacyDK isn't happy about levels of inheritance tax in the UK:Inheritance Tax is morally reprehensible, since those things that are inherited have been taxed many times already. He's wrong, and not just because you don't need much capital these days to start a business or buy a house. No, on the principle of "do the least harm", inheritance tax is the best tax of all: 1. There are no income and substitution effects on the dead. No incentives to worry about. No chance of a corpse becoming work-shy all of a sudden, or refusing overtime because of high marginal tax rates. 2. To find the least unjust tax, pick one on income that is entirely unearned, the product of nothing more than brute luck. Nobody's income is entirely down to luck; nobody's inheritance isn't. Personally, I'd ramp it right up: 60% should do for now, to help fund the Citizen's Basic Income. If people want to go and die elsewhere, that's fine. It'll save the NHS a fortune, too. Pete picks our pocketsSomething very wrong with this headline in the EUobserver:Brussels and Beijing agree to share burden on stuck textiles I'd be very surprised indeed if this deal has cost the denizens of Brussels a penny. Gucci suits and D&G leopardskin thongs are made in Italy, after all. Far more likely that it'll hit clothes shoppers at Peacocks, Primark, Matalan and Asda right in the pocket, with higher prices for low-rent clothes. The British Retail Consortium, evil corporate bastards that they are, get it: Kevin Hawkins, BRC Director General, said: "We are also concerned that this may indicate a more protectionist trend in EU trade policy, directed at China. As with any form of protectionism, the real losers will be low income consumers throughout the EU who buy the cheaper Chinese products." Remember when the Labour Party used to stand against capitalists, not outflank them on the corporatist-protectionist right? Yet again, for instant shafting, just add Mandelson. 5.9.05Only wordsI've been meaning to take up this challenge from Chris for a while:William Vallicella asks of the US Left: “Take away their blind oppositionalism and their venom and what is left?” ... It pains me to say so, but this is a good shot, isn’t it? So, here’s my challenge for the Left (and I include myself in this). Forget, for the moment, Iraq. What positive proposals do you have to improve the condition of the working class, or any oppressed group, in the western world? Chris's proposal for a Citizen's Basic Income is one I endorse. In watered-down form, and as lonely as a sane man in an asylum, it was Green Party policy at the 2005 election. John B in the comments focuses on education: Invest in adult literacy and numeracy programs... make them compulsory in order to claim benefits. Also make them available on the same basis to all prisoners — only grant parole to those who attend... University expansion has disproportionately benefitted not-very-bright middle class children, while not doing as much as hoped for bright working-class kids. Cut university attendance numbers by 30%. Invest in technical training for the groups that are no longer able to go to university... Keep comprehensive schools, but re-introduce streaming in all academic subjects. Couldn't agree more, though I also wouldn't be averse to more selective education on the basis of talent, rather on religion as we're forced to endure now. So, from a long piece I wrote some time ago at The Sharpener, here's my suggestion: ...a system of regional, open-list PR... Under this system, each voter casts one vote for a candidate only, just like now. There is no preference voting (1st, 2nd, 3rd choices etc.) and no ‘party list’ voting (putting a cross in a box marked “Labour”, for example). Each vote cast for a candidate does count towards the total regional votes for the party (unless he/she is an independent), but is only used for calculating the distribution of local seats to the party, not for deciding which party members take up those seats. So, one voter, one vote: PR needn’t be complicated. So how does tinkering with the electoral system help the working classes? Simple: it ensures that governments of the stripe people actually choose get elected. It translates votes into seats with maximum efficiency and minimal waste. It tends to increase political participation and turnout. It maximises representation, without which democracy is a pointless, hollowed-out shell. Any more for any more? Go on, pass it on... 3.9.05Return of the king?Anyway, I'm back. Some vaguely related questions that I'd love to know the answers to:1. Not counting prisoners, journos and students, what proportion of the current population of New Orleans (a) is white, or (b) has a college education? 2. Why can every pre-teen tell you what sorcery (abstract noun) is and what a wizard does for a living, but can't understand exploitation (abstract noun) or explain what a capitalist does for a living? 3. Why, oh why do I agree to spend one whole week every summer with my (sort of, I'm not married) mother-in-law? Maybe I'll run this as a Cornflake competition: In 14 words or less... More, and marginally more sensible, on Monday. |
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