Whew...

Gosh... you can almost hear the tumbleweed rolling across the face of this blog. A desolate strip of packed earth and sand with not a single green shoot poking its head tentatively above the soil. No fresh loam, but coarse and barren land.

I have, for various reasons, been otherwise occupied. Ironically I've had all the time in the world, however for a rationale best understood only by myself, I have neglected my little corner of the world.

Given the past few weeks there is no shortage of ammunition for me to base a few posts on, but if I'm brutally honest, the current affairs of the UK have been somewhat depressing of late. The election of the new speaker, for example, has been a bit of a let-down. A red tory (forgiveable) whose expenses track record hardly screams reformist (unforgiveable) has replaced a grumpy old lefty whose expenses track record was 'take what you can, give nothing back'. Wow. Well, that is a breath of fresh air.

Terribly disappointed that Richard Shepherd didn't get the job - his speech was curt and damning, but then again, perhaps given that it is little wonder.

So, anyway, just a quick one (hello, yes, still alive thanks).

Purnell turns on his master

I hope you all did your bit for democracy yesterday. I heard a few comments going around that abstention was the only way to register your protest with the system, with politicians, and while I understand their frustrations, I disagree entirely. Not voting, in my view, dishonours the sacrifices that went before you to allow you the ability to vote. Fair enough that you can argue those people fought and campaigned just as much for your right not to vote as your right to vote, but I think in those circumstances, with all the parties available to you, there must be at least one that represents your views enough for you to tick next to their name?

In most things I am somewhat libertarian in my views. Freedom is the highest and most sacred right of all, but sometimes, I think the Australians have got it right, making it a legal requirement to turn up to vote, even if you then choose to abstain. Of course, I disagree on general principle, but the idea holds a certain appeal!

Overshadowing the elections last night, however, was the resignation of James Purnell. I seem to recall a few favourable comments from some of the Labour crowd a few days ago, including some from LGBTLabour on twitter. I bet they're seething now... David Cameron carpe'd the diem with this:

Belshazzar was SLAIN!

You'll have to excuse the Biblical reference, but it is the Son of the Manse, that great scion of Presbyterian conscience and moral authority, to whom I refer.

Gordon Brown's refusal to confirm whether or not Darling or Blears have a future in the Cabinet was telling. It was the closest he had yet come to announcing that a cabinet reshuffle was indeed on the cards, and while you might perhaps forgive him for letting Blears drift, Darling has been a loyal chancellor - so loyal that he has gained the unenviable caricature of being his sock-puppet. Yet even Darling has on occasion 'overstepped' his master's authority with comments that diverged from the Prime Minister's chosen tune. Perhaps it is not so surprising that past loyalty is no protection when your master is backed into a corner fearing for his political life.

Ultimately, though, the suspense was broken by Jacqui Smith when she announced she would be standing down at the next reshuffle. Admittedly, she failed to fall on her sword as thoroughly as we would have liked by resigning as an MP entirely. With her slender majority of just over two-thousand, however, my suspicion is that she hopes to save her seat by showing some penitence. Smith's resignation could not come too soon, in my eyes. In her two years in the job as Home Secretary she has seen the Government's plans for increased terrorist detention defeated and has presided over massively unpopular plans for authoritarian DNA databases and ID cards. The Liberal Democrat's Chris Huhne branded her a failure even on her own terms. Throw in her expenses, her attempts to make prostitution even more open to abuse (a total lack of appreciation for the law of unintended consequences) and husband's predilection for charging his porn films to the taxpayer, and her position really was untenable.

Her attempt at damage limitation is, as ever, too little too late. What it has served to do is put the writing on the wall for Gordon Brown. If more nails were required for the proverbial coffin, Tom Watson added another with his resignation, and now the SNP are teaming up with Plaid Cymru to use their time next week to force a debate on the dissolution of Parliament . Nick Clegg has thrown his support to the debate, and William Hague has called the SNP's bluff by announcing on Sky News that if dissolution were debated, the Conservatives would be in favour. Should it come to this, Dan Hannan and Iain Martin have both postulated that the Queen might need to exercise her unwritten constitutional right to dissolve parliament. This may yet come to pass.

For all Parties involved, this could be a case of 'be careful what you wish for'. The expenses debacle has battered Parliament, and the European Elections will be a litmus test for voter's intentions. While I doubt strongly that fringe parties would stand to gain much in a General Election, I have found it difficult to divine whether anger is directed equally at all MPs, or if the ire is concentrated on the Government. My suspcion is the latter, if only because the Conservative's reaction to the 'revelations' has been far more decisive, and with the greatest of respect, no one really cares too much about the Liberal Democrats anyway. They are, if anything, Labour-Lite.

From what I have gathered from those I have spoken to, people distrust Cameron simply for being a Tory. They fear he is just another Blair, but blue. Yet if you ask people to take Iraq out of the equation, you'll find a grudging admission that they really liked Tony, at least to begin with. Blair had energy, authority, and anger. He wanted to change things. Watching Cameron, you can see that same passion, and you can sense the barely contained fury as he watches a Labour majority do untold damage to Parliamentary democracy and worse, to the population of Great Britain. In that, at least, he captures the spirit of the nation.

My Labour-minded friends tend to be blinkered in their devotion, it is that classic tribalism which leads them to hold fast to their course even as their ship sails off the edge of the world. Slavish devotion to their party can only be tolerated so long as the party has the best interests of the nation, and of the individual, at heart. As soon as it begins to believe it knows better than its electorate, it deserves no longer to form a Government. That is a lesson Cameron would do well to remember. He speaks now of returning power to the people, a truly libertarian sentiment (ironically, Socialists often claim the same, however what they mean is power to the establishment, because they're smarter than you), and I sincerely hope he means it.

The European Elections will be the opinion polls to end all opinion polls for this Government. Even taking the anti-political contingent out of the equation, I suspect strongly that Labour are going to be pummelled.

As with Belshazzar, Gordon's days are numbered. The writing on the wall is the same now as then, and come election time, this unelected Prime Minister will be told as much: "Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting."

Le quote du jour

"Your ministers have failed you, Ma'am: send for better ones."

- Dan Hannan MEP, The Telegraph

Dan Hannan has suggested, respectfully, in his blog that it is time for the Queen to step in and exercise her constitutional role on behalf of the people of Great Britain by dissolving Parliament and calling for an election. He is right, to my knowledge, that this is one of the few constitutional powers she still has. In a case whereby the population have lost faith in their government and recent economic events have rendered the manifestos on which they were elected obsolete, this would seem to be the appropriate opportunity.

Petition Watch

From the Number 10 Website, we bring you the 5 most popular petitions to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Great Britain and Ireland. Good causes, mostly. Except for the last one:

Five most popular open petitions

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to…

• resign. (38302 signatures)
• Protect the RNLI from paying licence fees for using Maritime radio frequencies. (28561 signatures)
• mandate savings account providers to include the current interest rates on every statement (27994 signatures)
• Not reduce the national speed limit to 50mph (27444 signatures)
• prevent plans for Universities to be able to charge increased tuition fees (26921 signatures)

Nuff said.

Moar signatures pl0x

At present counting there are now 23,276 signatures on the Number 10 petition for Gordon Brown to resign.

That's just over a signature for every £1 of debt we owe as our share of the national debt.

Add your paw prints here.

Think he'll take the hint?

Time to put democracy back in action

Just getting ready to head out and unseat Alistair Darling, campaigning in Edinburgh South-West and spreading the good word with some of the Scottish CF crowd. In the meantime, I thought I'd draw your attention to this petition, to request that Gordon Brown leave office.

Guido, Iain Dale and Dr Crippen have posted on this, and Guido seems to think that this could have a lot of potential. So, if you're tired of ZaNuLiebour's authoritarian, thieving and generally disgraceful behaviour under the captaincy of the Prime Mentalist, I urge you to take a minute, head over, and sign the petition.

Right. Now I'm off to rally the troops in the fight against Badger Brows (and his) Baleful, Barmy, Bad Budget.

Far too much alliteration for a Saturday morning...

When the mind wanders to tax and economics

Having a curious little thought about tax and the economy, so bear with me.

This little thought comes from a very important question: given all the waste in the public sector, where is all this money going?

Here’s a hypothetical. I’m directing a big IT project at the HMRC. Let’s say a nice, civil liberty infringing database, something perhaps to do with ID cards. These things seem to be all the rage these days anyway. I appoint some Programme Managers and Project Managers, but since we have very little in-house experience, we’re going to need contractors. So we tender the project and appoint a consultancy. Let’s call them Capcenture, for arguments sake.

Capcenture come in, look at our hastily drawn requirements and make some suggestions, the requirements are changed and we then go out to hire a load more contractors to help us develop it – coincidentally, most of these people are one-man-band ‘consultancy’ companies going through an Agency, taking advantage (barely legally) of IR35 to pay as little tax as possible (and who can blame them?). Already the bill is looking pretty swollen, but the project is underway.

Then, someone goes back to the original specifications and decides that there’s more functionality they need out of it. Development has already started, so this means more modifications, and the timetable slips. The budget doesn’t cover for that kind of slippage, so they revaluate the project and go back to the purse holders talking about sunk costs and the importance of this government approved initiative.

More contractors are hired at £500 per day to help with the development. The Consultancy is called back in with their specialists each at £1500 per day. The bill goes ever higher, and the project will run for ever longer. All this money gushing from the purse of the public; but where is it going to?

The Government is giving it to private sector companies, whose tax receipts will funnel some of it back to the Government. The rest they will invest in staff, or save, or spend as is their wont. The shareholders off all these companies will reap the dividends. The consultancies all know this. That’s why there are armies of ‘Public Sector Account Managers’ and specialists. An entire business stream has built up on selling to the public sector, because it is the ultimate cash cow – and they always pay their bills. If it sounds a lot like stealing from Peter to pay Paul, you’d be right.

Where has the money gone? Into the private sector; waste or not, you can’t deny that people have profited from it, even if it is the few rather than the many. Hold up a second there. Did we just say the few rather than the many? Isn’t the point of socialism and social democracy the many rather than the few? Isn’t it about redistribution of wealth and all that stuff? Our taxes have gone to pay for a project that lines the pockets of the evil capitalist piggy things! By extension, the Government has stolen from the many to give to the rich few.

Yikes. Who’d have seen that flaw in their logic?

Anyway, it seems to be something of a merry-go-round of money. I think of it as being that there is ultimately a finite source of cash in the economy. This can occasionally be increased in terms of numerical amounts, but the ultimate value of the cash pool cannot change. In my very simple understanding, this is why we get inflation – you can print as much of the stuff as you want, but that only devalues what you have. 100% split into thousandths is still 100% when you add it all up. Growth, and an increase in the base value of the money pool, can only occur when new products are created or resources made/discovered.

The only difference is who determines where that money goes. Is it me, or is it the Government?

The Devil’s Kitchen has for a while now been hunting down, naming and shaming what he identifies as Fake Charities. These are pressure groups and lobbyists that receive significant funding (more than 10% or at least £1m, I understand) from HM Gov. Notwithstanding that I find the principle of the Government choosing to pay my taxes to a ‘charitable’ pressure or lobby group with whom I disagree to be a total affront, the funding for these groups should come from those who support them, not the body politic.

I do not agree with what the Anti-Drinking/Alcohol lobby say, therefore I am appalled that my taxes are going to fund them. I may sympathise with the Anti-Tobacco lobby insofar as I like not having smoke in my face, but the fact they push to actively remove the rights of others to do to their bodies as they please means that I would never willingly give them money. As you can imagine, I’m not best pleased that the Government does on my behalf. Even for charities of which I approve, such as Stonewall, I do not agree with the Government funding them, or indeed any public sector body. Public money should not fund a pressure or lobby group, however admirable their aim.

The Government has decided that it knows best where to spend our money and to whom to donate, therefore these ‘charities’ receive money to advance their arguments to the Government. Right or wrong their arguments may be, the decision of who to support should be mine. On no grounds, be it health, social welfare or civil liberty, should taxpayers cash go towards a pressure group. Unfortunately, it does.

Charity should be private and personal. Charities and political lobbying groups can lobby me for my cash all they like. They certainly should receive none from the treasury.

The State colossus, Big Government, our massive and bloated Public Sector, are the manifestation of that denial of choice. They are testament to a belief that our leaders know best how to spend our money. Which, given the way they throw it around, shows a complete lack of respect for the people from whom they take it on threat of imprisonment. I apologise if that all seems melodramatic, but New Labour scare me and I don’t trust them with my money. Imagine if the Government let failing industries fall. What do you think would happen? My belief is that if there is no market for goods, the companies are on borrowed time anyway. If their departure creates an opportunity, someone with savvy will fill it.

At the heart of all this is one basic difference. One approach assumes that the populace is too selfish or too stupid to spend its money, the other believes in the intelligence and natural altruism of the human spirit. If you like, socialism is the ultimate form of political pessimism. Libertarianism, and to a degree, Conservatism, believes in the ultimate good of humanity and in our ability to decide for ourselves.

The Thought Police score again

This is a disgrace.

If you need to ask why, then there really is no hope left...

Free speech includes the right to criticise, to offend, to question, to debate... for heaven's sake, this is stifling. Incitement to hatred? That may not be desirable, but it is a *right*. Do I just believe too much in innate human decency?

One by one, new Labour's thought police are taking away our freedom to express ourselves, whatever our views. It's unacceptable, undemocratic, and it scares the hell out of me.

Mandelson's Ghostbusters Moment

Part of me (the part that wants Nu Liebour put in the stocks and pelted with rotten veg) was amused to hear about Mandelson getting slimed.

Unfortunately, I find such displays to be tantamount to assault - the acts of the raving lunatic lefties for whom decorum and debate are as alien as soap once was. Except that the environmental protestors these days are as likely to be called Sloaney as they are Swampy, and will have a bottle of Corton Charlemagne in their hamper next to the smoked salmon sandwiches. Just look at the students at Edinburgh University, who arranged their anti-Israeli love-in complete with MacBooks and Blackberries. If I were Edinburgh, I'd just have cut power to the building and shut off the WAP...

By lowering herself to this level, Leila Deen may have gained herself a few column inches and amused smiles, but it hardly gives the green lobby any credibility. Plane Stupid? Couldn't have thought of a more apt name for the lot of them.

Oh, and Mandy? Send her your dry cleaning bill; actions have consequences, after all. Maybe it's time she learned that.

Quick one off the (Terror) Wrist

So, you crack down on our liberty and give the police new powers to terrorise (sorry, protect) the population, and what do you have to show for it? These figures from ConservativeHome this morning.

"Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows the police to stop and search people. In 2008:

• Number of people stopped nationwide by British Transport Police using s 44: 160,000
• Number of people stopped in London by the Metropolitan Police using s. 44: 200,000
• Number of people amongst the 360,000 stopped under s. 44 and found to have any terrorist material or links: 0"

Draw your own conclusions.

Eurobarometer swings...

... Exactly where you'd expect it to, actually.

Just to crunch the numbers for you:

• 14% of UK residents questioned were aware that European elections will be held in 2009.
• 34% of UK residents questioned are even interested in said elections.
• 64% are not.
• 18 % of us 'would definitely vote'
• 28% of Brits have recently heard/seen something about the European Parliament on TV/Internet/Newspaper (the lowest of all members polled).
• 19% of us think we're well informed about European Parliament.

Oh, and apparently we have a European Anthem.

Anyway, the upshot of this would seem to suggest that the UK at large doesn't have much interest in Europe. The Czech seem to have noticed this.

To quote DK: "Can we leave yet?"

Hat tip to The Croydonian.

Smoke and mirrors. And Sat-Navs, nannies, mortgages...

Mr Eugenides has cross-posted on DK about a little smoke-and-mirrors at Westminster - namely, that the much awaited 'review' of MPs expenses, in a severely watered down format, was conveniently announced (without much ado) on the same day as the Heathrow runway debacle. John McDonnell's little performance served as a nice little headline grabber to draw attention to the fact that very little has changed.

The Times has the run-down here.

Global risks

I am now thoroughly ensconced back at my desk, roibos tea in one hand, mouse in the other. Blogging services are resumed.

One of my colleagues joked that he had expected me to have been kidnapped while I was away. This got me thinking. According to the RiskMap 2009, published by the Control Risks Group, Nigeria ranks number four in the top ten kidnapping-for-ransom countries in the world. So, you might conclude that a visit to Nigeria is not the wisest thing to do.

I disagree. I went, and I returned without incident, or even the suggestion of one. Why? Because I was miles away from the problem. Nigeria’s troubles are concentrated in the Niger Delta. The hotspot, if you like, is Port Harcourt in the east. The west of Nigeria could be a holiday destination if it wasn’t for the litter on the beaches.

On New Year’s Eve I shared a table with an Olympic swimmer. She had competed for Zimbabwe earlier that year, realising a life-long dream. Sat in conversation with her, I asked how safe it would be for me to visit. Her answer raised a wry smile on my face.

“Are you a farmer?”

“Not last I checked.”

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re bringing foreign money into the country.”

She then made another point to me, which I’ve already alluded to. There is more to Zimbabwe than Harare. The south of the country is, I’m told, beautiful. You can go on a safari for less than $300 USD within two hours drive of the nearest airport, and stand a handbreadth from lions and giraffes.

Of course, the counter to that is if there are safer places to go where you can do similar things, why entertain the risk? Simply put, because I saw things that most people will never see. As I clambered up the side of a waterfall, I knew that the chances were strong that aside from locals, no one else ever did this, and that held a little magic for me.

On the other hand why take any money into a country like Zimbabwe, run by a man who is a blight upon freedom? If you can be sure he won’t get his mitts on it, fine...

Softly Spoken

The speaker 'regrets' that the Police had been able to raid Damian Green's office without a warrant. Apparently, yes, ladies and gentlemen, the House of Commons speaker really is that wet. He spoke not so much with conviction, but with a whimper. Grow a spine, man, and stand up for democracy!

In other news, amongst the other Bills contained in the Queen's Speech was the Savings Gateway Account Bill, whereby the Government intends to pay 50p for every £1 that low earners manage to squirrel away into this special new account, up to a maximum Government contribution of £300. Without massaging the figures, that's a 50% interest rate for the first £600 saved. Now I'm sure there must be stringent controls over how this works, but hold on just one second, I'm all for incentives to save, but isn't that what ISAs are all about?

It is important for people to have savings - you need that cushion for a rainy day. Furthermore, it encourages financial discipline, and in my opinion, saving for something makes far more sense than borrowing the money to buy it. Not only do you feel like you have earned your purchase, but you don't have to pay ridiculous interest on it.

So what we have here is the Government telling us to go out and spend (wait, isn't that how we ended up in this mess?), while at the same time telling us to save (which could contribute towards stagnating the economy) which it will encourage by spending taxpayers money at a time when we have a budget deficit. Talk about mixed messages.

I is payin fur mah guverment. I wantz refund.