Mayoral Debate

Last night I attended the Sky News/Intelligence Squared Mayoral Debate at Cadogan Hall. There’s a bit of coverage here.

It was lots of fun, although I don’t feel I learned anything about the candidates which I didn’t already. Doesn’t make a huge difference though as I sent in my postal ballot last week…

Boris seemed to be love-bombing Paddick, and agreeing on almost every issue. Collectively they attacked Ken on several issues, and even though he dodged the question about second prefs, I think Paddick would rather have Boris than Ken

Anyway, if you’re interested in watching the debate its being aired again this evening on Sky News at 9pm.

The Union’s Page 3 Debate

Last week, amid much hype and excitement (mainly at the fact that the Sun bus, loaded with several page 3 girls was in town), the Union debated the motion ‘This House Believes that Page 3 is Unacceptable in the 21st Century’. The motion was defeated.

I was left, however, feeling disappointed at the quality of the debate. The proposition all seemed terrified of being branded patronising to the girls who were there. Not one speaker made a substantial feminist argument about why page 3 is inappropriate (such as it entrenches traditional views of women as merely sexual objects etc). The opposition were equally disappointing - trying to turn the debate into an issue of freedom of speech and censorship, when clearly it does not follow from something being unacceptable that it should therefore be prohibited.

Nick Clegg was a member of CUCA

Apologies for the long delay in blogging… I’m finally back in Oxford, and so have stuff to do. And thus more reason to procrastinate by blogging…

Anyway, Dale has this great piece on Nick Clegg’s membership of the Cambridge University Conservative Association.

Ed Balls used to be in OUCA, so why shouldn’t Clegg have been involved in CUCA. His excuse was that he joined all the political associations in order to be able to hear all the speakers. I think this is fair enough to be honest, and don’t think that politicians should be overly held to their actions (and views) when they were students. Student politics is supposed to be about experimenting with ideas, and defining your views - this includes the obvious risk of error, as Clegg (and Balls) have discovered.

It is a real issue though: how much of what one writes/thinks when a student really matters? While it is important to be held to your views, and if you flip-flop or abandon principles, then that may be blameworthy, but can we really hold Clegg to account for messing around in CUCA?

Short break

I’m off on holiday for the next week, so I may not have a chance to write anything…

A personal right to bear arms

The 2nd Amendment of the US Bill of Rights reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

While I knew that there was a (lively) debate over the interpretation of this amendment, and disagreed with the notion, I had always thought that there was some form of individual constitutional right to bear arms. This had been the line taken by every opponent to gun control I had ever heard, and seems to have invaded the public consciousness.

Yet recently I was reading this in Slate, and learned that in fact, the courts have never upheld such an individual right. Indeed, in the last case in which the issue was discussed (United States v. Miller, 1939) the court determined that

that an individual right to a gun had no “reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia,” and thus the Second Amendment did not confer individual rights to gun ownership. The court followed with seven decades of constitutional radio silence on the subject, either reaffirming Miller in a whisper or declining to hear new cases.

This led former Solicitor General Erwin Griswold to insist: “[T]hat the Second Amendment poses no barrier to strong gun laws is perhaps the most well-settled proposition in American Constitutional law.”

So why has this myth of individual rights been so prevalent? Polls in the US still show that three quarters of people think the constitution provides a personal right to own guns. The Slate article blames the power of the NRA.

In 1991, former Chief Justice Warren Burger even described the “individual rights” view of the Second Amendment as “one of the greatest pieces of fraud—I repeat the word ‘fraud’—on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

Anyway, this issue is relevant because on 18th March the USSC heard arguments in the case District of Columbia v Heller which contests the constitutionality of DC’s strict ban on handgun ownership.

The Economist has this:

The city wants the court to rule that Americans have a right to bear arms only in service of a government militia. This would upend the law and drive the gun lobby bonkers. Failing that, Washington wants its ban on handguns to be accepted as reasonable. Neither verdict, however, is likely.

I am in favour of stricter gun control, and so hope that the Roberts court upholds the precedent of Miller. As the Economist predicts, however, this may be improbable.

Embryo Bill (2)

As Right Student says in his comments on my last Embryo post:

This could be about any topic and it would still be as absurd for Gordon Brown to allow rebellions as long as it didn’t affect the final result. Democracy? hardly!

I couldn’t agree more. On issues of conscience such as this there is clear parliamentary convention that the matter should be a free vote. To even suggest allowing ministers to vote against the bill only if it will not affect the result is outrageous.

Thankfully the press has caught hold of this, and the leaders in today’s Times, Telegraph and Guardian are all opposed to Brown’s stance.

The Guardian says:

That is the thing about the individual conscience - it is not for the majority, the government or the chief whip to decide when it applies. The only people who can decide on an issue of conscience are individuals themselves. The bill should be supported, but MPs should be given a free vote on the most contentious issues and should not be heavily whipped on the bill as a whole.

It is not often I find myself in agreement with Guardian leaders, but here is one which speaks sense.

As the Telegraph points out:

What has turned this issue into such a thundering row is the inexplicable clumsiness with which the Government is handling it.

By resisting a free vote, Downing Street has succeeded in picking a wholly unnecessary fight with the Catholic establishment (including a number of Labour MPs and ministers). It has also prompted renewed concerns about the Government’s basic competence at a time when it is already struggling in the polls.

This was The Right Student’s point in his post yesterday - what on earth compelled Brown to do this?

It is further evidence of Brown’s ’stalinist’ desire for control, and his clumsiness in  pursuing policy objectives. Yes the bill should be supported, but it will pass under a free vote… so why turn it into an issue (and a news story) where one was not needed.

The Real Cost of Living

The Conservatives have today unveiled a great piece of research revealing that the cost of living is rising far faster than the 2.5% inflation rate claimed by the government.

ONS figures show that, since Brown became PM:

• The price of butter increased by 37%
• The price of a dozen eggs increased by 34%
• The price of a loaf of bread increased by 28%
• The price of flour increased by 22%
• The price of a pint of milk increased by 17%
• The price of cheese increased by 17%
• The price of a sack of potatoes increased by 11%
• Gas and fuel prices have increased by 10%
• Petrol prices have increased by 8%

It also shows how taxes have risen, which in tandem with inflation has led to declining real earnings over the past two years.

While it’s possible (probable?) that statistics have been massaged or chosen to make their point, but it seems undeniable that Brown’s claims of low inflation are false.

As Fraser Nelson points out at CoffeeHouse

The wider Tory point is this: you’re suffering, we understand, yet Brown claims you’ve never had it so good so he can’t be trusted. For as long as the PM is addicted to fake figures which jar with people’s experience, he is wide open to this powerful charge.

This should further serve to undermine what little confidence the electorate has in the Brown-Darling team.

Cigarette display ban…

The BBC has this story, that the government is considering a ban on displaying cigarettes in shops.

This seems absurd. The smoking ban I could sort of understand, as it removes the possibility of passive smoking from the workplace (but I still had doubts about it). But this I do not get.

Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo said it was “vital” to teach children that “smoking is bad”.

“If that means stripping out vending machines or removing cigarettes from behind the counter, I’m willing to do that,” she said.

Yes it is important to teach children that smoking is bad. I do not see the link between doing that, and the removal of cigarettes from display.

If people want to smoke, are over the age of 18, they should be able to walk into a shop and purchase cigarettes. While perhaps putting them under the counter is would not require a huge amount of additional effort on the part of the smoker, it does seem that the government really is crossing the line.

Cigarette advertising is already banned, the age limit has been increased to 18, there is additional tax payable, there is a smoking ban affecting many places, there are warning labels on packs of cigarettes… Will this further measure really help? Is it necessary? I think not.

(for the record, I don’t smoke).

PS - Peter’s Apology has an interesting post on smoking licences here

I disagree with his harm analysis, and think that the harm principle, or at least some reading of it is relevant. Current legislation only allows adults to smoke (to prevent harm to those without the capacity to reason properly) and there are restrictions on where they can smoke (to prevent harm to others). I think that this proposed display ban, and especially a system of smoking licences, would go against the harm principle.

Edit: Dizzy isn’t very happy about this either, and raises a couple of interesting practical points

A rant about the Mirror

Read this.

The Mirror is having a field day about a comment Cameron may have made to his to his four year-old daughter, Nancy. He supposedly said: “You look like you’ve fallen out of a council flat.”

The quotation was provided by ’senior political sources’ - wow, those big-shot politicos really can’t have anything better to do than report on Cameron’s banter with his children…

I doubt that he actually said it, and one of the Mirror’s sources seems to have gone back on themselves (a senior female TV journalist no less). He denies it, and his office denies it. The use of an uncorroborated anonymous source seems suspicious at best.

Even if he did say it, what business is it of anyone else how he speaks within his own home?

I resent the cheap, sensationalist approach of the Mirror, throwing in pointless details about Cameron’s wealth.

The inverse snobbery abounds… the second sentence refers to his ‘£2m West London home’. Later attention is brought to the fact that ‘The former PR man lives in a £2million mortgage-free home in West London, and has a country house in Oxfordshire worth £1million.’ The Mirror is quick to warn us that

‘Mr Cameron is far from the man of the people he likes to claim. He is descended from King William IV, making him a distant relative of the Queen.

Wife Sam, 36, is the creative director of upmarket stationery company Smythson of Bond Street. Her stepfather is Viscount Astor and she is a direct descendant of Nell Gywn, mistress to Charles II.’

What is the point? How does this contribute to the ’story’? The Mirror is effectively saying, we don’t like him because he’s rich.

This is not a story, and it certainly isn’t the ‘political storm’ which the headline refers to. In my view this is a fabricated attempt to embarrass Cameron. But it is too late, the article is wrong to assert that Cameron ‘desperately needs to shake off his rich, Eton-educated image’. He has already sucessfully done so. Opinion polls show that Cameron has moved past the ‘wow, he’s a toff’ stage and he is actually popular.

Shame on the Mirror for printing such trash.

Brown’s economic legacy (gold)

Richard Spring MP explains how Brown oversaw the largest single loss in British history (£4bn).

The proceeds of the 1999 gold sale by Gordon Brown was invested 40 : 40 : 20 in the dollar, euro and yen. After taking into account all the currency movements and converting them back into the dollar at current rates, the loss is a massive and unprecedented £4 billion.

This is particularly relevant now that gold has soared to over $1000 an ounce.

A Treasury estimate from 1997 has the overall cost of Black Wednesday at £3.4bn. No one remembers this, and it did little to dent public confidence in Labour’s economic competence.

Thankfully, Northern Rock and the credit crunch has led to the downfall of the myth of Brown’s competence. Anatole Kaletsky wrote in January that Northern Rock is Brown’s Black Wednesday

It is good that the public has not forgotten this the way it forgot the gold sale.

China on the Dalai Lama

From Reuters:

“We must … win the final victory in all respects against the secessionist forces to help ensure a successful Olympic Games with a stable social situation in the Tibet Autonomous Region,” Xinhua quoted Tibet’s governor, Qiangba Puncog, as saying.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, said on Sunday that the Dalai Lama, winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, had never abandoned violence after fleeing China in 1959 following a failed revolt against Beijing.

“The so-called ‘peaceful non-violence’ of the Dalai clique is an outright lie from start to end,” the paper said. “… The Dalai Lama is scheming to take the Beijing Olympics hostage to force the Chinese government to make concessions to Tibet independence.”

Can anyone else spot the hypocrisy of the Chinese… I’m sure you all agree it is the Dalai Lama’s violent streak we have to worry about!

David Mamet on Liberalism

David Mamet has undergone a damascene conversion away from ‘brain-dead’ liberalism. In an essay in the Village Voice (found here) he explores the liberal contradiction, wondering:

how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart?

The major problem I have with liberalism is its idealism. Liberals and conservatives tend to act similarly, as Mament observes:

I found not only that I didn’t trust the current government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president—whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster—were little different from those of a president whom I revered.

Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.

And I began to question my hatred for “the Corporations”—the hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and services they provide and without which we could not live.

And I began to question my distrust of the “Bad, Bad Military” of my youth, which, I saw, was then and is now made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world. Is the military always right? No. Neither is government, nor are the corporations—they are just different signposts for the particular amalgamation of our country into separate working groups, if you will. Are these groups infallible, free from the possibility of mismanagement, corruption, or crime? No, and neither are you or I. So, taking the tragic view, the question was not “Is everything perfect?” but “How could it be better, at what cost, and according to whose definition?” Put into which form, things appeared to me to be unfolding pretty well.

Read the essay in full, it’s very interesting.

Hat tip: CoffeeHouse

George Osborne on the Credit Crunch

There’s a good article in the Telgraph by George Osborne, contrasting the difference in the British and American reactions to the credit crunch.

-compare the rapidity of the takeover of Bear Stearns with the dithering over Northern Rock

-compare the economic stimulus package of tax cuts with Darling’s ‘do nothing’ budget

The Conservatives have regained the poll advantage on economic competency, and seem to be taking lessons from America. Good.

Embryo Bill

I for one am looking forward to seeing the inevitable Labour rebellion on the Embyro bill this week, which will further demonstrate the internal division. Conservatives are being given a free vote, the government is allowing some freedom, but only if it doesn’t affect the result!

This seems absurd. Like when Clegg ordered his party to abstain on the EU vote, we can expect a significant rebellion from government ministers.

Edit: The Right Student has a good piece on this here

Gordon on Ken

Matt d’Ancona has a good article in today’s Telegraph explaining why Brown needs a Livingstone win, and detailing the volte face that we have seen (in 2000 Brown wrote an article in the Evening Standard headlined ‘Livinstone must not be London Mayor’, now he writes, in the same paper, that ‘Livingstone is the only choice for Londoners’).

Aside from the personal feud between Brown and Livingstone, which d’Ancona beautifully describes, an important point is raised. That a win for Boris would symbolise the huge shift in public opinion away from the government. As d’Ancona says:

Imagine the impact upon the PM’s credibility if First Minister Salmond was tormenting him daily in Edinburgh, while Mayor Johnson, newly-installed in City Hall, urged London to turn against the sombre creed of Brownism and look to a brighter future. A cross-border insurgency, led by two politicians - one SNP, one Tory - both possessed of high intellect and great charisma. Two great cities, colonised by the PM’s enemies, mighty symbols of his waning power. More than ever, Number 10 would resemble a bunker and the Brown administration reek of obsolescence.

No wonder Gordon said Ken was “inspirational” last week. With so little time left to turn round Labour’s prospects in London, the PM would say just about anything. When Boris announced his candidacy, Labour’s preening oligarchs laughed. They are not laughing now.

No, they’re certainly not laughing now.

Have your say

I just watched the latest episode of That Mitchell and Webb Look (Thursdays 9pm BBC2). There’s a brilliant sketch parodying the BBC’s bizarre fixation with demanding the views of its viewers/listeners on every topic.

Why, instead of delivering real analysis on any issue (as is done in the US) by experts and pundits, does the coverage always switch to the reactions of some random punter on the high street? The reason we watch the news, or current affairs programmes, is to listen to facts and informed opinion.

Currently the BBC ‘have your say’ section asks visitors questions on:

-is poor parenting creating unruly parents?

-is the cardinal right to attack the embryo bill?

-should cyclists obey all traffic laws?

I don’t know about anyone one else, but I couldn’t care less that Andrew (from London) thinks that ‘Parents are responsible for sending properly socialised children to school‘.

The lack of hard news coverage, and good analysis is a major issue in contemporary journalism. Uninformed public reaction as filler material is not good enough.

Your comments are welcome…

China (again)

I’ve been invited to join the facebook event:

London Olympic Torch Relay | Peaceful Protest

I don’t really see the point to be honest.

This is not a group calling for a boycott of the Olympics themselves, as ‘the Olympics are a sporting event, and that a boycott would not just harm the Chinese, but the thousands of athletes who have spent their lives preparing for this event.’

Instead it calls for us to ‘ensure that the Government of the People’s Republic of China is fully aware that the world cannot in good conscience tolerate the gross violations of human rights that it systematically carries out within its own borders, the financial and military support it has extended to the brutal regimes in Burma and Sudan, and its continued oppression of the people of Tibet.‘

But the action it calls for (namely, a peaceful protest along the route of the Olympic torch) will in no way convince the PRC that the world cannot tolerate the gross violations of human rights etc… Indeed, the lack of significant action surely shows that in fact the world can and does tolerate Chinese actions.

I’m not saying that we necessarily should take significant action, as I’ve said before I don’t think a boycott is the way to go, merely that this protest is inconsistent and pointless.

Edit: Perhaps I spoke too soon about the pointlessness of protests (BBC)

Political advertising

Iain Dale has an interesting piece on ads taken out by the Kent County Council advertising ‘Clean Kent.’

I agree with his sentiments. Why should taxpayers’ money be spent on informing them about the good work which the county is doing?

The government, at national, regional and local levels, seems to be spending an awful lot of money on campaigns to let people know what a good job its doing. This is particularly prominent in London, where it seems everywhere you turn there is a poster declaring something to do with the the Mayor. For example or this.

While obviously there is some merit to public information campaigns - especially when this involves educating them about health risks, the effects of new legislation etc… But it does seem that there is too much self-congratulatory back-patting.

Inside the Bear

An interesting insight into life at a fallen empire (Bear Stearns), found over at Slate.

Lol

The Right Student has this comparison… Darling always did bring back childhood memories. Now I know why.