They're all centrists now: and we are but piggy-banks

Stephen Pollard's article in the Daily Mail is not the first to sound the death knell for the Labour Party—but it is one of the more scary ones for those of us who are libertarians.

One by one, Labour's leadership candidates are rapidly disowning every element of Miliband's manifesto, and pretending that they never really had anything to do with it. 

They realise – and you'd have to be spectacularly blinkered not to see it – that Labour's programme was comprehensively trounced on May 7.

True enough—and good news for those of us who despise socialism as a mechanism of destruction, powered by spite. But are the alternatives better?

It was, after all, the new deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, Robert Halfon, who suggested immediately after the Election that his party's name should be changed to the Workers' Party. The suggestion was entirely serious and shows Labour's fundamental problem. 

With the Queen's Speech promoting a series of measures designed to help people who work hard – such as removing tax for anyone working 30 hours a week on the minimum wage, and doubling childcare – and David Cameron talking all the time about working people and One Nation Conservatism, it's clear the Tories are fully focused on keeping control of that space. 

It's the Tories who speak for Mr and Ms Average Brit, who know what they want and offer it to them.

And what are these centrist parties offering? They are offering to increase the size of the state, to take more money from those people who are not part of their favoured cliques, and to continue the expansion of welfare for "hard-working families".

And what of those of us who are not "families"—merely hardworking? What of those of us who don't believe that the state is the answer to every question?

The answer is clear: we are to knuckle down, to submit, and to fucking well thank the centrist parties for the opportunity to fund their ambitions.

In other words, the Conservative Party has simply reinforced the idea that only those whom they favour—whether that be economically or socially—should be rewarded. Those of us who do not subscribe to their ideology should be ignored and brutalised—our dreams treated as nothing, our work nothing more than an income stream, and our aspirations to be harnessed to the ambitions of their voters.

Fuck me, but the Labour Party were a terrible bunch of bastards—but what are we now left with?

• Conservatives—believe in increasing state power by rewarding "better" behaviour;
• Labour—believe in increasing state power by rewarding "better" behaviour;
• LibDems—believe in increasing state power by rewarding "better" behaviour;
• UKIP—believe in increasing state power by rewarding "better" behaviour;
• Greens—believe in increasing state power by rewarding "better" behaviour.

Not one of these parties believes that people should be able to live their lives as they themselves wish; and not one of them really believes that people should have to stand by their own decisions.

This is why, for instance, small business-people are so turned off by their politics. Those of us who run businesses are responsible for our mistakes—because our mistakes might lead to penury for others.

Politicians have no such qualms—their mistakes punish people they don't know and, fundamentally, don't care about. If they need more money, they need only pass another law.

Truly, we are faced with a stark choice, my libertarian friends. We cannot now pretend that any mainstream party—despite the proliferation in recent years—might represent our views.

We are now nothing more than milch cows for our political and social masters. Despite, in many cases, being the brightest thinkers and the most profitable risk-takers in society, our voice does not matter anymore.

And libertarians? We are piggy-banks to pay for mistakes that are not our own.

The battle-lines are drawn: it is libertarians vs. everyone else. And I fear that we have lost even before we have begun.

Boycott!

So, the BBC has finally sacked Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear.

Given how much money the programme makes for the Beeb, I would say that decision might be described as "courageous".

However...

Your humble Devil has sod all interest in cars^*, but I did rather enjoy watching Top Gear. I think, basically, because it was three chaps—mercifully free from the aching right-on-ness of most people these days—arse-ing about in colossally brilliant machines built by very clever human beings.

It seems that the other May and Hammond—in a decent British show of solidarity with a mate—will probably not continue with the programme. Good for them.

So, the upshot is that I think that the BBC are totally wrong to sack Clarkson. Totally and utterly wrong.

Thank goodness that I can boycott their output, withhold my payments and cancel my contract. And that's why I am calling for a...

I'm sorry—what?

Prison? For not wanting to pay for a service that I not only don't want, but morally disagree with?

Oh.

FFS.

^* I got banned some years ago, and have never bothered to apply for my licence back—despite the ban having expired two years ago (or more).

Yeah, that'll sort it out. Not.

As much as I enjoy slagging off our political masters, there are one or two decent people in the House of Commons; for them, it must be pretty galling to be lumped in with their lazy, venal and corrupt colleagues—not just by bloggers, but in "proper" studies too.

"Eh? What the fuck are you talking about?" I hear you cry...

Well, it seems that a study by the University of Nottingham has worked out that the MP intake of 2010 are possibly the most rebellious since the dinosaurs. Or something.

The study by the University of Nottingham says MPs have become more rebellious and independent-minded in recent years. The Parliaments elected in 2001 and 2005 produced record numbers of revolts, but the 2010 Parliament is already "easily outstripping" them, say Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart, who conducted the research.

They say the 43 per cent rebellion rate is "simply without parallel in the post-war era", and is even more dramatic because the Parliament is still in its early stages, when new MPs tend to be more acquiescent. "One of the most noticeable features about the 2010 cohort, especially on the Conservative side, is how troublesome they have been," the authors say.

Yes, well, good for them, on the whole. The top five rebellious MPs listed—which includes your humble Devil's blog mascot, I'm proud to say—are generally on the side of decency and, more importantly, their constituents.

And they are, by and large, decent freedom-minded people (if not outright libertarians) who think that Westminster needs a good shake-up.

But these rebels must be mortified at the study's proposed solution for making our fat-headed Prime Minister's life easier...

"Over time the ranks of the rebellious new MPs will swell, unless the Government can create a raft of new jobs to keep its backbenchers occupied..."

So, basically, a bunch of idiots from the University of Nottingham think that David Cameron should invent a whole load of new make-work jobs in order to shut these people up?

How?

Do these people think that men like Nuttall, Reckless, Baker or Carswell can be bought off with some pointless minor ministerial distraction? Or perhaps they think that the jobs should be loaded onto the rebels regardless, so that they are too busy to vote?

I have chatted quite a bit to the last two on that list, and I am pretty damn sure that neither of them could be bribed in this manner.

The way to get people like Baker or Carswell to vote for the government is for the government to actually enact some laws that, cuts government spending, unfetters the free market and increases freedom for the people of this nation.

Other than that, I am pretty fucking sure that the corrupt idiots at the University of Nottingham are on to a loser. Which is why your humble Devil is happy to renew his support for Steve Baker MP for another year...

In the meantime, however, it is hardly surprising that a bunch of academics should suggest that free speech and independent thinking can be stifled by the awarding of a meaningless sinecure—it's just one of the reasons why our education system is so utterly shite.

Fracking hell

Counting Cats has a good article up about the hysteria surrounding shale gas fracking. As an amusing diversion, I thought that I'd have a look at Frack Off—the campaign site for those with absolutely fuck all idea about science or economics.

These morons do not seem to be simply against fracking, mind you...

The UK is also threatened by a massive expansion in opencast coal mining, deep water oil drilling in the North Sea, Coal Bed Methane and a new generation of even more dangerous nuclear power stations.

So, essentially, these people are against any kind of reasonable power supply at all. So, please, when your granny freezes to death this winter—either because she can't pay the fuel bills, or because the super wind turbines have failed to actually deliver any power—do remember to send a Thank You card to Frack Off.

Personally, however, the most eloquent monument to the complete stupidity of those running Frack Off is the comment that they have let stand on their front page. It purports to be front a Gillian Craig and runs thusly: [Emphasis mine.]

From the first time I heard about this operation some months ago I was concerned, not having a scientific mind in any way whatsoever but quite a logical one, I started questioning about the void left by fracking and then finding out that the void is filled with water, which is not the natural substance to replace gas in the void created. Water is not a solid substance and will move and soak away, I am certainly not surprised that earth tremors have been associated with this practice. STOP IT NOW

There you go people—"water is not a solid substance". Whereas, of course, gas is. Er...

Still, Gillian Craig is right about one thing: she really doesn't have "a scientific mind in any way whatsoever"—although her claim to have "quite a logical one" is belied by the sheer, rampant stupidity of her remarks.

What's really funny, though, is that if you note the link, you'll see that Gillian's spouting is comment #11—but it is the only one that appears on that page. Which means that this was the best comment that they could find and that at least another 10 disappeared down the memory hole (presumably because the commenters disagreed with Frack Off).

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is all that you need to know about the arseholes at Frack Off: that they don't tolerate free speech, they tout the stupidity of people like Gillian Craig, they are pig-ignorant about science and economics, and that they think that 2,700 people dying of cold every winter just isn't a big enough death toll.

What a lovely bunch they must be.

Statement of the bleeding' obvious

Today's statement of the bleedin' obvious comes from the Low Pay Commission...

The minimum wage may be pricing young people out of work because employers are finding it too expensive to give them their first job, Government pay advisers have said.

Firms may be reluctant to create jobs by recruiting inexperienced staff because they are put off by the increased wage bill, the Low Pay Commission has suggested.

No, really? You surprise me.

You mean, if you make employing people more expensive, then you will have fewer employees? Tell me, o sages of the Low Pay Commission, what are your views on increasing employers' NICs?

Oh, they might slightly contribute to unemployment too? Genius! Who'da thunk it...?

FFS.

UPDATE: Timmy elaborates on why the Low Pay Commission might be understanding this now.

What is so annoying about all this is that we told you so you fucking fools. We said that if you bring a min wage, one which continually rises above general wage inflation, then you will get to a point where it does severely crimp employment prospects. And it will be first evident among the young, untrained and untried.

So, happy now that it’s happened?

The truth is, the minimum wage is almost certainly too high already. Worthwhile Canadian (search for it yourself!) did some work a couple of years back showing that as long as the min wage was below 40% of average (I assume, from memory, mean) earnings, then the unemployment effect was minimal. When it goes over 50%, then the effects become more substantial.

Mean hourly earnings for men are now 16.25 an hour. For women 13.73 an hour (ASHE 2010).

Part time they’re 12.06 and 10.64 an hour.

The minimum wage at 6.08 an hour (the 2011 number) isn’t affecting full time employment all that much and it’s just getting into the range where it might start having substantial effects on part time employment. So far so good.

But, the youth rate is £4.98 an hour. And what are mean wage rates for this group? Again from ASHE: for 16-18 year olds, £4.84 and for 18-21 year olds, £7.62 (both male).

So, in that 18-21 year group, we’ve a minimum wage which is 65% of the mean wage. Well into our territory where we expect to see substantial employment effects. For 16-18 year olds, it’s 3.68……76%.

Are we seeing substantial emplouyment effects? Well, certainly, all the awailin’ about NEETS seems to show that we are.

And you know what kiddies? We fucking told you so.

Official figures last month showed that almost 1 million of the 2.5 million people officially counted as unemployed in Britain are aged between 16 and 24.

As the man said, we did tell you so.

Good question, Mr Potato Head

The story about the bar owners in Michigan banning politicians reminded me of the Ban Darling campaign that did the rounds a couple of years ago—so I went and looked up some old posts. This piece included a video of Cameron mentioning the campaign at PMQs and attacking Brown for... Well, just watch...



Did you catch the pertinent line? No? Well, here it is...

Can he [Brown] name one other major country that is responding to the down-turn by putting up taxes? Name one.

I do not know if the Gobblin' King could name one (I didn't preserve that part of the debate), but I bet good ol' David "20% VAT & Oodles of Green Taxes" Cameron can, eh?

But, given the intervening events, I think that the question needs some modification...

So, Davey-boy: can you name one other major country that has successfully got themselves out of the down-turn by raising taxes? Name one.

Dave? Dave? Bueller...?

Rearing its ugly head again...

Off to fight for our rights—David Cameron, yesterday...

I see that David "Buttered New Potato" Cameron has been spouting some more bollocks in the Sunday Express this weekend.

We are looking at creating our own British Bill of Rights. We are going to fight in Europe for changes to the way the European Court works and we will fight to ensure people understand the real scope of these rights and do not use them as cover for rules or excuses that fly in the face of common sense.

Its worth heading over to see Cranmer's pretty comprehensive deconstruction of Cameron's arsewibble.

This proposal was dismissed by the present Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, as ‘xenophobic and legal nonsense’, and the present Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, lauded the ECHR in his maiden speech in 1997, in which he said:

The incorporation of the European convention on human rights into our national law is something that, although challenging, is nevertheless desirable if it can be done without diminishing the sovereignty of Parliament.

So, with the two most senior legal minds in the Cabinet opposed in principle to derogation from or revocation of the European Convention (or repeal of the Human Rights Act), it is not at all clear how the Prime Minister can 'fight in Europe' without first fighting in his own Cabinet and tearing his party asunder (yet again) over the issue of 'Europe'.

My general rule of thumb—especially as regards the EU—is that if Ken Clarke is opposed to something, then it must be the right thing to do.

Never the less, a Commission on a Bill of Rights was established by the Government on 18 March 2011, and is seeking your views (by 11 November). But it is a bizarre political process, the outcome of which is more than a little pre-ordained. There is a feeling of being marched to the top of the hill only to be marched all the way down again in a few years time, and nothing will have chaged.

There are a number of problems with this whole Bill of Rights thing...

We already have a Bill of Rights. It was the legislative expression of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688, and was part of the deal under which William and Mary became joint rulers, giving Parliament, rather than the monarch, power over taxation, criminal law and the military. It is not a mere Act of Parliament, but a foundational constitutional treaty of the order of Magna Carta, the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Act of Union 1707. Does Mr Cameron’s new Bill of Rights imply the repeal of any of the provisions in these treaties? If so, it must be done expressly, for the doctrine of implied repeal may not be applied to constitutional statutes.

So, we already have a Bill of Rights. Well, what's left of it. And therein lies the problem...

A British Bill of Rights will not be binding on future Parliaments for Parliament may not bind its successors. A new Bill of Rights would, once passed into law, have no more chance of surviving a subsequent parliament or of guaranteeing rights than any other Bill passed by both Houses and rubber-stamped by Her Majesty. What is the point of enshrining any such rights in a Bill, the provisions of which may be revoked at any point by any future parliament?

And this is why any Bill of Rights—including that established after the Glorious Revolution—will not actually last within the British legal system.

The Prime Minister has said that he wants the new Bill of Rights to be somehow ‘entrenched’, to have a greater degree of ‘permanence’. But, if followed to its logical conclusion, this would give ultimate power to unelected judges, rather than to elected politicians, and so judicial activism is not mitigated. Is the Conservative Party really proposing to abolish the supremacy of Parliament?

Well, the Conservative Party did that when it took us into the EEC back in the early 70s; moreover, it has been, on the whole, the Conservative Party that has enthusiastically signed up to more and more EU Treaties that have further eroded the "supremacy of Parliament".

So, slowly, in words of one syllable, repeat after His Grace: “A new Bill of Rights will not stop the rot.”

Or, to translate Cranmer's polite remonstrance into something your humble Devil's readers might more appreciate, Cameron is talking complete and absolute horseshit.

In fact, as Cranmer pointed out at the beginning of his piece, the Buttered New Potato has been banging on about this bullshit for some time—egged on, it must be said, by numerous people in the blogosphere.

Your humble Devil originally wrote a long piece on this subject back in April 2009, pointing out that one of the biggest objections to a Bill of Rights is that it totally entrenches the state as the bestower of these rights—and thus as the most important entity in the country. And this, to a libertarian, is utter anathema.

The crux of the argument is this: once upon a time, our rights were only those which did not need to be defined—what some would call "negative rights"—and which were centred around the human right, basically, to be left the fuck alone.

Now, our rights are described and circumscribed by the state—so-called "positive rights"—and it is the state that defines what our rights are, and the state, therefore, can also remove those rights.

For example, when the state defines that citizens have "the right to an education", what it actually means is "the right to an education provided by the state and funded through the extortion of money from other citizens".

"Surely, Devil," some will cry, "this is a bit of a leap of imagination?" No, not really: let me amplify.

There is no such thing as free education and if someone cannot afford to pay for an education for their child, then the money must come from someone else. And the only way that you can absolutely guarantee that this money can be obtained—as opposed to, for instance, soliticiting charity—is to know that it can be stolen from someone else.

And the money must be stolen from someone else because the state has said that the right to an education is a fundamental "human right": therefore, not only must the right to an education be delivered upon, but it morally supercedes the right not to have the product of one's hard work stolen by force (because being allowed to keep one's own property is not, you see, a "human right").

And the only organisation that can be allowed to steal people's property by force is the state. This is not only to allow the state to keep order, but also because any other agency which was allowed to steal from people would be a competitor to the state—a challenger to its power—and thus absolutely cannot be allowed.

(There are agencies in the UK other than the central government who are allowed to steal to fund their programmes, of course; these include the Scottish government and local councils. However, they depend upon the central government for their power, much of their money and, indeed, their very existence; they are thus part of the collective entity known as "the state".)

And since the state is the only entity that can legitimately steal from people, the state is the only entity that can guarantee "the right to an education" and, by extension, all of those other "positive rights" that are now defined.

And so, because our rights are now defined by the state, we have become subjects—vassals of the state—and have simultaneously entrenched the rights of the state to continue to steal off us.

For, if human rights (as they are now legally defined) are an absolute moral good and the state is the only entity that can deliver those rights, then the very existence of the state itself must be an absolute moral good.

And if the state is an absolute moral good, then the state's right to steal off individuals must also be an absolute moral good. As such, the state-defined "positive human rights" must trump—both practically and morally—any individual rights at all.

As such, the state is now the most important entity in the country; it is far more important than any individual or collection of individuals.

And that is why we are treated with such contempt by our rulers: because they are an absolute moral good and we are merely aphids to their ants—aphids to be farmed for our sweet sap—so that the state can deliver to us our "human rights".

And that is why our freedoms have never been so clearly defined and yet so clearly non-existent.

The wife also wrote a considerable piece on the subject of a British Constitution: one of the biggest points of her post amplified the same misgivings as I have—namely, that the kind of shits who would be writing such a thing.

Then, naturally, one must consider who would be writing the British constitution. The organisation of the British polity would seem to demand that this be undertaken by the Government, which undertakes all other matters generally, whether by use of executive privilege or its majority in the House of Commons. A Government-composed constitution would naturally result in a highly-politicised, fad-filled document reminiscent of the European Charter of Human Rights, which includes absurdities like the right to an education and the right to healthcare. Many of the ‘rights’ described therein can only be guaranteed and provided by a collective entity – the state – at the expense of others. What it would come down to is a pitting of right against right, liberty against liberty, entitlement against entitlement, wherein your right to your property is overridden by my right to healthcare, just to name an example. A true constitution would include as rights or liberties only those things which are universal to all people at all times, and thus do not conflict with one another. Call me sceptical, but I doubt that any British Government of whatever party would produce anything of the sort.

In June 2009, I then parlayed off her piece to examine some of the other problems inherent in this course of action.

We have seen what a Labour government's idea of a British Constitution would look like, for Jack Straw was eagerly trying to push it upon us. It had, if you remember, an awful lot about the duties of the people to the state, and not an awful lot about freedom, about liberty or, indeed, the right to be left the fuck alone to get on with one's life.

No, any Constitution written in this day and age would be very much like the much-mentioned Social Contract: something you never signed or agreed to, which allows the state absolute licence to pinch your pocket whilst constantly changing what it is obliged to deliver.

I already feel like Lando fucking Calrissian; indeed, your humble Devil can often be found striding around, muttering "this deal just keeps getting worse".

Do you really think that a British Constitution written in this day and age would look more like the US version than the Lisbon Treaty? I think not.

Those of you who yell for a written Constitution—seriously, just consider what you are asking for. Do you think that libertarians will be writing this document? Or do you think that the hideous mores of so-called Social Democracy will be set, near enough, in legal stone—almost unchangeable—for the next few centuries?

In the words of one comedy character, "is that what you want? 'Cos that's what'll 'appen". And, believe me, that would be no laughing matter.

And my conclusion to that post was pretty clear—even by my standards.

No, I have come to the conclusion that one of the few things that would make me seriously consider leaving this country—and all of its beautiful ale (and it would take an awful lot for me to leave that)—is a written Constitution.

Because that Constitution would be written by cunts: it is already bad enough that we are ruled by cunts, but at least we can choose a different set of cunts after five years and we can hope—if a little forlornly—for a set of decent people eventually.

With a Constitution written in this day and age, we would be stuck with a legal document that would force us all to be cunts ruled by cunts, and adhere to the principles of cunts for many a long year.

In short, the Buttered New Potato can take his Bill of Rights and his British Constitution and shove them right up his hole.

That is all.

Jill Duggan: epic FAIL

Jill Duggan: "I open my mouth, and rubbish pours out..."

Today seems to be the day for car-crash media, so let us move on from Charlie Sheen and cross over to Australia, where they are having something of a debate about whether to introduce a cap and trade carbon Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), similar to the one that has lined the pockets of government bureaucrats and transnational corporations in Europe.

Generally speaking, the Aussies are not overly keen on making everything more expensive on the unproven threat of Armaggeddon: they are also up in arms about the fact that the government is about to spend millions of Australian tax dollars on a softening up exercise marketing campaign to "inform" Australians about the scheme.

All of this you can hear in this Australian radio show, broadcast on the 9th of March and featuring Andrew Bolt.

The highlight (and I use that word advisedly), however, is the interview with a British woman called Jill Duggan.

You probably haven't heard of Jill Duggan before, but she is an EU apparatchick who is responsible, amongst other things, for Britain's ETS.

And she gets absolutely slapped, politely but repeatedly. I have an MP3 [2MB] of the relevant section, thanks to His Ecclesiastical Eminence, who describes Duggan's performance thusly...

The Australians who are conducting the interview are worried that perhaps an ETS is not such a good idea.

Having heard the interview you will understand why they feel this way—Duggan's performance is truly catastrophic, with our the woman from Whitehall apparently unable to quantify either the costs or the benefits of the scheme she runs. It's hilarious, toe-curling and utterly compelling.

These, ladies and gentlemen, are the Rolls Royce minds that run the UK these days.

Just in case you are unwilling or unable to listen to this epic failure from this idiot, thieving EU moron, via The Englishman, you can read the transcript of the whole interview in Andrew Bolt's Herald Sun column—I have reproduced some of the best bits below...

Jill Duggan is from the European Commission's Directorate General of Climate Action. She is the EC's National Expert on Carbon Markets and Climate Change. She was head of Britain's International Emissions Trading. She is in Australia to tell us how good Europe's emission trading system is and why we should do something similar [PDF].

No one, therefore, should better know the answers to the two most basic questions about this huge scheme. The cost? The effect?.

Well, you might think that, Andrew, but obviously you haven't had many dealings with the EU before: as Strange Stuff has eloquently pointed out, the EU doesn't give two shits about cost (after all, it's not as though the EU Commission have to answer to the electorate, member governments or anyone else, for that matter) and nothing is going to stop them carrying out batshit insane ideas regardless of whether those policies will achieve the stated aims or simply beggar everyone in Europe.

Andrew Bolt: Can I just ask; your target is to cut Europe's emissions by 20% by 2020?

Jill Duggan: Yes.

AB: Can you tell me how much—to the nearest billions—is that going to cost Europe do you think?

JD: No, I can't tell you but I do know that the modelling shows that it's cheaper to start earlier rather than later, so it's cheaper to do it now rather than put off action.

AB: Right. You wouldn't quarrel with Professor Richard Tol—who's not a climate sceptic—but is professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin? He values it at about $250 billion. You wouldn't quarrel with that?

JD: I probably would actually. I mean, I don't know. It's very, very difficult to quantify. You get different changes, don't you? And one of the things that's happening in Europe now is that many governments—such as the UK government and the German government—would like the targets to be tougher because they see it as a real stimulus to the economy.

AB: Right. Well you don't know but you think it isn't $250 billion.

JD: I think you could get lots of different academics coming up with lots of different figures.

AB: That's right. You don't know but that's the figure that I've got in front of me. For that investment. Or for whatever the investment is. What's your estimation of how much—because the object ultimately of course is to lower the world's temperatures—what sort of temperature reduction do you imagine from that kind of investment?

JD: Well, what we do know is that to have an evens chance of keeping temperature increases globally to 2°C—so that's increases—you've got to reduce emissions globally by 50% by 2050.

AB: Yes, I accept that, but from the $250 billion—or whatever you think the figure is—what do you think Europe can achieve with this 20% reduction in terms of cutting the world's temperature? Because that's, in fact, what's necessary. What do you think the temperature reduction will be?

JD: Well, obviously, Europe accounts for 14% of global emissions. It's 500 or 550 million people. On its own it cannot do that. That is absolutely clear.

AB: Have you got a figure in your mind? You don't know the cost. Do you know the result?

JD: I don't have a cost figure in my mind. Nor, one thing I do know, obviously, is that Europe acting alone will not solve this problem alone.

AB: So if I put a figure to you—I find it odd that you don't know the cost and you don't know the outcome—would you quarrel with this assessment: that by 2100—if you go your way and if you're successful—the world's temperatures will fall by 0.05°C? Would you agree with that?

JD: Sorry, can you just pass that by me again? You're saying that if Europe acts alone?

AB: If just Europe alone—for this massive investment—will lower the world's temperature with this 20% target (if it sustains that until the end of this century) by 0.05°C. Would you quarrel with that?

JD: Well, I think the climate science would not be that precise. Would it?

AB: Ah, no, actually it is, Jill. You see this is what I'm curious about; that you're in charge of a massive program to re-jig an economy. You don't know what it costs. And you don't know what it'll achieve.

Let me just underline this point for you: Jill Duggan—the arsehole who is theoretically in charge of this enormously expensive ETS programme—does not know what the costs are, nor the supposed benefits.

That's a pretty stunning admission, isn't it?

After all, regardless of whether one believes in the whole catastrophic anthropogenic climate change theory (CACC), surely any steps that we do or do not take should be properly assessed?

Let's imagine that CACC is real and we need to act: well, given that premise, we need whatever we do to be effective, and to be as low cost as possible. And we should do that by means of a quantifiable cost-benefit analysis (CBA). Without an effective CBA, you could be pissing many billions of pounds up the wall whilst absolutely not achieving your aims at all.

Which is, of course, precisely what has happened with the EU ETS.

But it gets worse (believe it or not)...

JD: Well, I think you can look at lots of modelling which will come up with lots of different costs.

AB: Well what's your modelling? That's the one that everyone's quoting. What's your modelling?

JD: Well, ah, ah. Let me talk about what we have done in Europe and what we have seen as the benefits. In Europe, in Germany you could look at, there's over a million new jobs that have been created by tackling climate change, by putting in place climate policies. In the UK there's many hundreds of thousand of jobs.

Jill, Jill, Jill: even if this were true—and I know that Timmy will be proud of me for pointing this out—jobs are a COST not a fucking benefit, you moron.

But, unfortunately for Jill, it is not true, as Andrew Bolt is swift to point out.

AB: Actually, that's not right, is it? I just saw research. Did you see this? It came last week. Verso Economics saying that, for example, in Scotland the investment in green power has cost 3.7 jobs for every one green job created [BBC link inserted by me—DK]. And there are similar figures; I'm looking at Italy here, Germany, Spain. They're all the same figures.

One can almost hear darling Jill physically reeling as she is slapped down once again. But she's got her script and she's going to stick to it... [Emphasis mine.]

JD: They're not all the same figures. You can pick figures to support any argument. What I'm saying is that the experience in Europe is we've done things well and we've had some things which we wish we'd done differently at the start. The impact on the economy has been that it has stimulated growth in jobs that will last. It's not been noticeable in the impact on households. Not compared to gas and oil prices and the impact that they have on households. And that we actually have governments in Europe including the UK, Germany and France who are asking for tougher targets now. Now governments aren't in the business of trying to undermine their economies. They want their economies to grow. If the UK, Germany and France did not believe that this was good for their economies and good for the planet they would not be asking for tougher targets.

Really? Andrew Bolt is sceptical (to put it mildly) and comes in for the kill—using a brilliant tone of naive wonder...

AB: I wish I could believe that. We’re talking about a region—Europe—that has unemployment at 10% and a growth forecast this year of 1.6%. I don’t know what we could learn from Europe actually.

Boom! If Jill hadn't been struggling before—and she was—she could hardly bounce back from that. And sure enough, she just wibbles on about nothing until she is unceremoniously cut off.

But Jill Duggan's statesmanlike assurance delighted at least one listener, who was moved to call in...

Paul: Where do I donate money to get this interview published? Can it be an advert? Can it be run during "An Inconvenient Truth"? Please, I’m praying, where do I give money?

Let us hope that Jill Duggan realises that she is now an international laughing stock and slinks quietly away to cry in her room. Maybe she will even be moved to slit her wrists in a warm bath.

Do go and listen to the interview [2MB]—listen out particularly for the bit where poor Jill is rendered utterly speechless—and reflect on the major point here: this woman and her EU colleagues have committed the people of Europe to a colossally expensive programme without, apparently, doing any sort of cost-benefit analysis.

Or, if they have done a CBA, they are so incompetent that have sent someone who doesn't know those figures to lecture Australians about how wonderful this ET scheme is.

It would be funny if it wasn't costing us billions of pounds...

Ed Miliband: which losers flushed his head down the loo?

Your humble Devil has been taking a well-earned, enjoyable rest from the sordid, depressing shit-pit that is British politics, and so it was The Appalling Strangeness who alerted me to the fact that David Miliband had admitted that he was a total loser.

Labour leader Ed Miliband has revealed he was a "bit square" as a youth, eschewing drugs and under-age drinking.

In a GQ magazine interview with Piers Morgan, he said his greatest talent was being "good at the Rubik's Cube".

Really? I reckon that Ed cheated by taking the stickers off and putting them back in the desired places. And he probably had to get his mummy to help him with that.

Asked if he had ever been in a fight, he said: "Well, I may have been hit a few times. I went to a tough school."

Oh, I bet you had your head flushed down the loo a few times, eh? Although not enough to drown you like an unwanted kitten, apparently.

The wonder here is that Ed makes David "Batshit"* Miliband look cool—well, relative to his idiot brother that is. And yet David Miliband is actually so massively wonkish and uncool that he makes everyone in the world want to beat him up behind the bike sheds.

Alas, the poor little Greek boy's blog is no longer publically available, so I must delve into my own archives to find Mr Eugenides' classic summing up of David Miliband's status in life.

David Miliband is the sort of guy that we used, in our un-PC schooldays, to describe as a spastic. He was the kid on the chess team that you bullied incessantly (or at least, you did if you were a bully when you were at school; I myself was, er, on the chess team). His is an eminently punchable face; the sort of face you want to grab and hold down in the toilet for flush after gleeful flush, roaring with joy that there are such geeks in the world for you to torment.

But David never stood up and described himself as "square": Ed Miliband has just done so, immediately putting himself lower down the pecking order than his loathsome brother.

So, if David Miliband was "the kid on the chess team that you bullied incessantly" then where does that put Ed Miliband? That's right, Ed Miliband was obviously the twat that the chess team bullied.

In short, Ed Miliband was at the bottom of the pecking order: in fact, I imagine that he was the only boy that it was considered acceptable for David "chess club" Miliband to bully.

Which puts a neat little spin on their relationship, don't you think...?

* Note for newer readers: "batshit" as in "batshit insane". Your humble Devil first used this term to describe Miliband back in July 2006, when the speccy tit was proposing "personal carbon points": it was Dave himself who immortalised it when he quoted my post at The New Statesman New Media Awards a few days later. David Miliband's involvement with the preservation of actual bats, whilst at DEFRA, led to the adoption of Batshit as his name and accompanying tag here at the Kitchen. I have yet to decide on a suitably mocking name for Ed, though "Beaker" is definitely in the running...

Suggestions in the comments, please.

Adults or otherwise

There are some things—sorry, a great many things—that are seriously fucked up in this country, but surely one of the most urgent and pressing issues is that of responsibility.

Yes, sure, the Coalition is happy to bang on about "personal responsibility" and all of that, but that's not what I am talking about—what I am referring to is the majorly stupid way in which the law recognises personal responsibility.

My thoughts were sparked by this extraordinary story, which I found via JuliaM.

A social worker who had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl in his care has avoided being sent to jail.

Eh? What? I thought that was supposed to be THE big no-no, surely?

Well, no, incredible as it seems, it wasn't having sex with her that got him into trouble. It was taking pictures:

Richard Superville, 51, of Ceylon Road, Westcliff, was caught out after explicit photographs of the teenager were found on his laptop, a court heard.

Although Superville had not broken the law by his affair—because the girl was 16—he had committed a criminal offence by taking pictures of her topless.

OK, let us leave aside the issue of "care"—for we must assume that the law that applies to teachers in this situation does not apply to social workers. What a surprise!—and just imagine that this is two people having a sexual relationship.

In that context, it should be obvious that the story outlined above is utterly insane—it's OK to fuck a 16 year old but not OK to take topless photographs of her? Barking. Naturally, this sparked off some thoughts about the utterly loony laws surrounding "ages of consent".

And yes, I meant "ages" because we have several. Let's have a look, shall we?

• You must be 18 to: vote, sell naked pictures of your own body, buy cigarettes or buy alcohol (if you're lucky: I'm sick and tired of seeing signs proclaiming that such and such a place won't sell booze to anyone under 21. Or even 25).


• You must be 16 to: leave school (until the Coalition arseholes bring in Educational Conscription), get a job, join the army (and be trained to fucking kill people), get married, bring up a child and to fuck (or be fucked).


• You must be 10 to: be held responsible for a crime that you've committed (yes, yes, we all know that was brought in so that the politicians could appease those baying for the blood of the Bulger killers, but it wasn't much higher before—twelve, maybe?).

Now, can we please get this shit sorted out?

If you are responsible for crimes that you commit at the tender age of ten, then you should be responsible enough to do anything else, including buying booze and fucking people. If you aren't responsible enough to do those things with your own body, then you are not responsible enough to know that you've broken the law.

And if, at the age of sixteen, you are deemed responsible enough to fuck and be fucked, then you are most certainly responsible enough to know when you can allow your lover to take photos of your naked body. Damn it, if you want to earn money by selling pictures of your own body to whomever wants them: you are allowed to fuck and you're allowed to work—why the fuck shouldn't you be allowed to sell the pictures of you doing one or the other?

And if you are responsible enough to make love, and to get married, have a child and to hold down a job and get taxed on your bastard wages, then you are most certainly responsible enough to vote for the politicians who are stealing 50% of everything that you earn.

And yet these things are not put on the same level at all—and it's utterly insane. At what age are you responsible for yourself in law—is it 10, 16 or 18?

Successive governments—including the Coalition—quite obviously think that the age is 18: however, they have all lacked the balls to tell people that they cannot get married, they cannot get a job and they cannot screw each other at 16.

Personally, I think that the age of responsibility should be somewhere around the 16 mark—possibly lower. If there is a possibility that a crime has been committed—a very much older lover inveigling a young girl into sex, for instance—then that is for a court to decide.

Sticking with that theme, we could do what most other countries on the Continent do (and as Canada does), and make the law flexible dependent on the difference in ages between the two parties.

Whatever you personally think should happen, I personally think that a little consistency would be a really good idea—if only so that a man is not sent to jail for taking sexually-explicit photographs of the girl that he is perfectly legally allowed to have sex with.

Sound The Last Post...?

My last post notwithstanding, your humble Devil finds himself unable to comment on anything at present.

I simply don't have the will or inclination to write, or even care, about politics at the moment. And even if I did express myself in terms which would lead to some catharsis, I would probably find myself in court.*

In many ways, Al-Jahom has expressed my current feelings rather eloquently.

So what’s changed? Why the quiet? Wither the fury?

Well, rage, anger and fury spring from the tiny hope that things can get better.

And so these vigorous emotions have given way to abject despair. You can see for yourself in the archives that the cynic in me never really expected things to be any different under the new lot. But I had to hope that the end of the Blair/Brown era would be a watershed.

And now what hope there was, however silly it might have been, is all but extinguished.

Nothing has changed. Nor will it.

The Labour monster was cast out and the dying hydra’s heads are snapping at each other furiously. It’s an amusing sideshow, but it’s of little consequence.

I’m not expecting the burden of taxation to ever be reduced in real terms. We have already been shown what we suspected – that Cameron’s pledges on the EU are meaningless, because Lisbon trumps the need for further legislation or treaty changes. The lights will still be going out before the end of this parliament, thanks to the influence of the Lib Dems on energy policy. I don’t expect to walk into a pub where I can smoke ever again. I don’t expect the police to be reformed for the better. I don’t expect the CPS to be taken in hand. I don’t expect family justice, or the judicial and punitive bias against men to improve. I don’t expect appeasement of radical Islam to decline. I don’t expect the transport system to improve; overcrowding, no new roads, vainglorious rail projects, hellish airports, spiralling costs, penalties and delays.

And a million Prima Donnas are crying about some marginal cuts to their pet projects?

So you see, *sigh*… What’s the fucking point?

Quite.

I want to stress that I am not a Tory, not—god forbid—a LibDem. I don't agree with most of the stuff that they are doing (or not doing): and in those areas in which I agree with in principle, I disagree with the way in which they are executing them.

I started blogging almost six years ago now: it's a long time in which to keep on writing about the same frustrations. But there were a couple of things that kept me going.

• The first was the political and philosophical journey that was developing. I started off, roughly, as a Tory who disagreed with some Tory policies and actions; sometimes, what I read—on blogs, not in the MSM—made me reassess my allegiances, and to rethink my position on a number of things. And as I became exposed to more economic and political theory, I started to understand that there was a vocabulary for the things that I believed.
  
  This vocabulary belonged to a philosophy called "libertarianism"; it was a philosophy of hope, of faith in human nature, and a method that outlined how an individual's great potential might be realised. And it was a philosophical and political structure that I believed—believe—in utterly.
  
  That journey that I made, however, has stopped. I am a libertarian, and I will be a believer in libertarianism until I die. As Steve Baker MP said at the Libertarian Alliance Conference a couple of weeks ago (and I admit, I may paraphrase slightly), "we are The Good Guys. We are the only ones who do not believe in coercing people to live their lives as we deem fit."


• The second reason to keep blogging was that there was some hope of change in the near(ish) future. Now, we have seen that change, and it is no change at all.
  
  We are ruled by same loathsome, lying, corrupt, venal bastards rule over us: they are simply wearing slightly different novelty masks. Indeed, the simple fact that I must write the words "we are ruled" is sign enough that nothing has changed.
  
  We are in for another five years of the same "dreadful, overbearing and untrustworthy" government as we have had for the past thirteen. And then? Well, either these same awful people will be returned to power or the Other Lot of awful shit-bags—the ones that we've only just got rid of—will be brought in instead. Again.
  
  And no matter which bunch of bastards we are forced to elect to Parliament will make little difference: the state will continue expanding, we will continue to pay more tax, society will become more atomised and dangerous, business will become more difficult, civil liberties will be removed, everyday pleasures will be ever more circumscribed and punished and our lives will continue to be a little bit harder and more miserable with every year that passes.

There seems to be little point in railing about anything because, with the politicians in power, nothing ever changes—no matter what the colour of the government's tie.

Take the whole Climate Change thing; we, the sceptics, are winning the scientific argument. The ClimateGate exposure of the shitty code and the dirty tricks employed by climate scientists sent waves around the world; now, the IPCC is threatened and the people, in general, believe that they have been deceived.

And yet the government carries merrily on, making our lives more expensive, curtaining energy and killing poor, brown people.

So what was the point—why did we bother fighting?

So, the main point is that I simply cannot bring myself to comment on the crap that is going on around us; I want to concentrate on making enough money to ensure that myself and my wife can, at the last, escape all of this shit. When the end of our great liberal civilisation finally comes, we can leave the stinking socialist hellhole that Britain is fast becoming.

Once I would have wished to take everyone with me, but the people of this country have shown that they don't care about freedom, they don't care about liberty—they would rather have their cotton wool prison. So now my considered opinion is, "you wanted this—you can go fuck yourselves."

Now, I'll admit that I have suffered from blog fatigue before and I have even previously announced my retirement. I will even admit that I found that doing so—being released from the need to write—actually returned to me the desire to do so. And it may be the same this time too.

But, the way I am feeling at present, it is looking a little unlikely.

I won't say that I am retiring, or that The Kitchen (or The Knife) is dead—as before, I may prove myself wrong. But what I will say is that—right now, at this moment—I feel no desire to write, and cannot see that desire returning. But, as I keep saying, it might do (do keep me on your Feedreaders).

Until that time—should it come—good luck to you all.

Ave atque vale.

* To be fair to Polly Toynbee (god, how I hate to write those words), despite the many brickbats thrown her way, she has never acted in the petty, vicious, pusillanimous way that the evil Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has done. So all credit to Pol.**

** I feel dirty just writing that sentence.

These people are morons

On Friday night, your humble Devil highlighted the fact that—as Wat Tyler pointed out—we do not actually calculate household income through the tax system and, as such, enforcing the cut in Child Benefit was going to be a bit damn difficult.

It seems that, belatedly, Our New Coalition Overlords™ have realised that they might have made a bit of a boo-boo and they are taking steps to remedy the problem.

Now, which route do you think that they have taken? Is it:

1. the government has decided to approach it in a different way, or
2. the government has decided to use the threat of violence in order to get its own way.

If you answered "2", then give yourself a pat on the back: the super Coalition has, indeed, decided to use the threat of violence to back up their stupid policy.

Higher rate taxpayers could be fined if they fail to declare they have a partner receiving child benefit, when cuts are introduced in 2013.

The Treasury has confirmed that "penalties" would be issued in cases of non-disclosure of earnings.

It follows reports that Treasury sources have said a plan to stop child benefit payments to couples with one higher rate taxpayer is unenforceable.

What the hell...?

Look, cutting benefits is the right policy. Cutting child benefit absolutely right: why the hell should I be taxed to pay for other people's lifestyle choices—especially when those people are earning multiples of my salary? And, apparently, Child Benefit is paid out for "children" up to 19! 19! For fuck's sake.

But, equally, the law in this country quite clearly states that any citizen has the right to organise their affairs in a way that minimises their tax liability; by extension, this also means that any citizen has the right to organise their affairs in such a way that they maximise their benefits receipts.

Whether you think that the withdrawal of Child Benefit is right or wrong is irrelevant: it should be done in such a way that citizens can comply with the law—this nebulous crap is stupid and wrong.

These people are idiots.

UPDATE: your humble Devil would like to apologise for the general incoherence of this post, but I find myself literally speechless at the crass stupidity of Our New Coalition Overlords™. Everything that they touch turns to shit.

NuLabour might have been incompetent, authoritarian bastards, but this lot are not much less authoritarian but, more pertinently, seem to be attempting to win an award for being stunningly, unbelievably incompetent.

Time for EU to see if they've lied (again)

A few weeks ago, I pointed out that the Tories' "referendum lock" on EU Treaties was a pointless piece of posturing that would be utterly ineffective, even if applied.

The whole issue has quickly become relevant because of the desire for the EU—driven by Germany—to gain control over Member States' economies. David Cameron was supposed to have won a great victory by enabling Britain to opt out of the EU's budgetary vetting, in return for supporting the three new EU QUANGOs gaining regulatory powers over the City and banking in general.

I would say that was, at best, a Pyrrhic victory and, at worst, a craven and stupid piece of negotiation which Cameron—and, more to the point, everyone else in Britain—is going to regret bitterly.

As President Sarkozy pointed out...

"Only four months ago, the words 'economic governance' were a taboo. But the idea is progressing."

Indeed. And it seems like Tough Dave Cameron is totally on board with the project. And even were he not, has Dave really managed opt out of EU oversight of the British budget?

In the words of a German diplomat, who upon reportedly hearing British claims of a victory at the summit, said, "Let's wait until October".

Well, it is now October and, sure enough, Douglas Carswell MP has found a puzzling piece of small print in the proposed Treaty.

If you read the European Commission document 11807/10 [PDF], however, it doesn’t seem quite so clear cut. Studying it, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the new rules on fiscal oversight are going to apply to all EU Member States, not just members of the Euro.

The paper – subtitled “Tools for stronger EU economic governance” – focuses on how Member States, not just Euro countries, “will act in compliance with the EU framework.” The “new structured mechanism” for vetting each countries budget will be applied to “all Member States”.

In or out of the Euro, the paper suggests Britain may indeed have her budget subject to EU Commission vetting – albeit that the time table for this “semester” process might allow officials to claim that the Commons gets to see it first.

And what if Brussels did not approve of the tax and spend policies of our democratically elected government?

If such rules only apply to Eurozone countries, why does page 5 of the document, under the heading “Corrective Action”, say that “This mechanism would apply to all Member States”. Use of that word “all”, again. If there’s a caveat saying “all” excludes Britain, I couldn’t find it.

On the next day, Douglas reminds us that "the cast iron guarantee" on the Lisbon Treaty was reneged on. And now there looks like there will be another Treaty—without any referendum.

Prepare for the government spin, which will likely say:

1. This new agreement involving France and Germany etc is not really a new treaty.

2. It doesn't involve giving the EU new powers in new areas. Just transfers in existing areas. And when we promised a referendum on any further transfer of new powers, we meant in new transfers of power within new areas. Obviously.

3. Besides, this is not a significant transfer of power. We were careful to say there'd be a referendum only when there were significant transfers. And we don't think this is significant. So there.

4. This new thingy, which isn't really a treaty, doesn't involve us, as we're not in the Euro. Despite what the small print [PDF] might say.

5. Anyhow, look how tough we've been, getting Europe to mug us for a little less with a slightly reduced budget increase!

By Friday, there's a fair chance you'll have been fed variants of all five of the above...

Of course, what the government actually seems to be doing is keeping the whole thing very quiet indeed.

This may, of course, be because there is nothing to worry about—Britain's opt-out is in an as-yet-unpublished addendum, and this isn't therefore a Treaty that transfers any powers. I'm sure that Eurogoblin, Nosemonkey (award-winning darling of the EU establishment) or Jon Worth will pop up and tell me that there is nothing to get excited about.

Unfortunately, Douglas believes this not to be the case, and another betrayal by the government is on the cards.

EU competence is to be extended into member state’s fiscal policy, with the power to make law for "all EU Member States". And it appears to have been kept hidden until today.

Not even the European Scrutiny Committee, I’m told, had sight of a paper by the “Task Force to the European Council” called “Strengthening Economic Governance in the EU” until today.

This hidden paper appears to confirm two things:

a) Despite what we were told in June, UK budgets will now become EU business. They might not be able to impose sanctions on us if they disapprove – yet. But they are involved.

b) According to the document, “The Task Force recommends a deeper macro-economic surveillance with the introduction of a new mechanism underpinned by a new legal framework .... applying to all EU Member States”.

Yep. That’s right. The EU is to legislate in a new area. In a way that could apply to all EU Member States.

And you thought there would be no further transfers of power to Brussels, eh?

Douglas's post is entitled "Have we been had?"

The answer, I'm afraid, looks to be "yes, we have been deceived by a bunch of utter bastards who are quite as unscrupulous and inimicable to the interests or desires of the British people as the previous administration."

In other words, not only will regulation of our great financial centre be controlled by Brussels but our supposedly sovereign government will still have to run its Budget through an EU vetting process. In other words, Euro or no Euro, the EU will control vast swathes of our economy.

And what can we do about it? Nothing, it seems—not whilst we are "led" (for want of a better word) by the spineless, massive-foreheaded Dave Cameron.

On my bookshelf, there is a well-thumbed copy of 2008's The Plan, signed by its two authors. Both messages, though concise, are personal—and embarrassingly flattering (I am, after all, a vain man). It is the one written by Douglas that finishes with this uplifting phrase:

Our time will come!

I certainly hope so, Douglas. But whilst I fail to lead a small party, and The Kitchen (a shadow of its former self) slides down the popularity rankings, you are in government—and yet seem almost as powerless as I.

Our time may well come—but if not now, when?

The Freedom Association hosts an idiot

Over at The Freedom Association website, there is an appallingly badly written article by some fool called Jonathan Jones. The commenting system over there gives no feedback and I have no idea whether my comment will be published or not, and so I replicate it below.

Wow. What a stunningly bad article...

Jonathan Jones shows very clearly that he has no idea what libertarianism is about, if only with the following line...

... affirming the inalienable right of the majority to force rules upon the minority."

Despite pointing to the Non-Aggression axoim, poor wee Jonathan obviously doesn't understand it: libertarianism does not recognise the "right of the majority to force rules upon the minority"—I think that you'll find that that is called "democracy".

The whole point of the Non-Aggression Axiom is that no one is allowed to force anything, rules or otherwise, on the minority—or, for that matter, on the majority.

"Libertarians argue that a government cannot stand without the support of the people."

Libertarians argue no such thing. Anarcho-libertarians believe that there should be no government; minarchist libertarians believe that the only thing that the government should exist for is the protection of its citizens (through the provision of national defence and, possibly, criminal justice).

I would fisk the rest of the article but I find it impossible because it makes no sense.

Read it.

It. Makes. No. Sense.

Why is Afghanistan in there? No idea. How does Afghanistan relate to libertariaism? It doesn't. How do the Americans or the Taliban relate to libertarianism? They don't. For that matter, how does George Washington relate to libertarianism? He doesn't.

What I take from this article is: the reason that Jonathan Jones is not a libertarian is because he believes that might is right. And, in this he is correct: for a libertarian, might is never right.

DK

Do go and read the article and see if you can make any sense of it.

Good luck.

Murdoch is not a libertarian

According to the BBC...

Rupert Murdoch is a libertarian—against too much state control, and in favour of individuals taking responsibility.

For the record, I agree with everything that The Appalling Strangeness has to say on this—Murdoch may be an economic liberal but that is not the same as being a libertarian.

Economic liberalism is, in fact, only one half of the equation: a libertarian is also socially liberal and I have yet to see The Scum, for instance, backing the legalisation of drugs.

But worse than that—Murdoch is a corporatist. His rags back whichever party Murdoch thinks will enable his News Corporation to wield the most power. Further, he deliberately backs parties in a way that makes them grateful and thus more likely to serve his agenda.

In other words, Murdoch gains legal advantage for himself and his businesses through effectively buying the legislators—he is, as I have said, a corporatist.

And there is nothing libertarian about corporatism.

Is Laurie Penny the stupidest woman on the face of the planet?

Look at it. That's Laurie Penny, that is. Fucking hell.

Timmy calls it grossly overblown rhetoric.

I call it a stupid, ugly, miserable, evil ignorant sack of weasel-vomit being paid too much to write filthy, lying, hyperbolic bullshit in order to pander to one of the world's most bigoted and moronic demographics—the bien-pensant, tofu-munching Lefty sheep-shaggers known as "the readers of The New Statesman".

I mean, how could anyone take this sentence seriously? [Emphasis mine.]

If [the Labour Party's] collective response to the greatest assault on social democracy in living memory is anything to go by, Labour has also lost sight of what it means to be a party of the left.

It might come as a bit of a surprise to Laurie Penny—who is, I assume, about thirteen years old—that there have been far greater assaults on "social democracy in living memory".

I fail to see, in any case, how cutting the amount of money that the state spends is, in any way, an attack on society—unless, of course, society revolves solely around money. I imagine that, for Laurie Penny, it probably is—after all, you'd have to pay me to spend a minute in her company.

And an attack on democracy? How is cutting government spending worse for democracy than Gordon "fucking" Brown's quite deliberate policy of extorting money and using it to buy votes?

And how is this possibly the greatest attack in living memory? This may come as a surprise to someone who probably can't remember the First Gulf War, Laurie, but there are still some people in this country who remember the Second World War.

(And, if you want to get pissy about it, the invasion of the Falkland Islands was arguably a greater assault on a social democracy by a military junta—it did, at least, involve some guns, missiles and lots of dead people.)

Still, I suppose that one should be grateful for the fact that dear old Maggie seems to be off the hook: the poor woman probably thought that she would be Laurie Penny's prime demon until she died. It seems, however, that Dave and Gideon are to be the greater hate figures for the Left.

Or that part of the Left that is represented by Laurie Penny anyway, i.e. the really fucking stupid part of it.

Luckily for Laurie, by the way, the answer to the post title is, "no, Laurie Penny is not the stupidest woman on the face of the planet": but that's only because Bevanite Ellie—surely one of the single most asinine creatures ever to grub around on this dirty ball of rock—is still around.

And mature, sophisticated and subtle though they may seem next to those of Ellie Gellard, it doesn't alter the fact that Laurie Penny's political views are slightly more black and white than footage of a Hitler rally, and about as well-meaning.

Yes, yes: I am sure that some people are going to pop up and say that I am exhibiting misogynistic tendencies—that I am only attacking this silly bitch because she is a woman. Believe me, that's not the case.

If I were a woman, I would be slitting my wrists—overcome by the way in which Laurie Penny shames my gender in general and the feminist cause in particular.

As it is, being a man (who knew?), I just feel a deep and abiding disquiet whenever I recall that I am part of the same species as the lack-witted creature that wrote this pile of cobblers... [Emphasis mine.]

They have knelt down and swallowed the Tory narrative that this recession is all Labour's fault, rather than the result of years of systematic global financial deregulation with which every major political party in Britain and America was until lately in agreement.

Er... Good fucking god—where to start? And how to put it in the kind of simple terms, Laurie, that a lackwit arse like you will understand?

Let's have a go...

• The Labour government spent far more per year than they were able to steal from people in tax.


• This "deficit" has been climbing steadily for the last decade—long before the recession hit.


• Last year, Labour overspent by nearly £170 billion.


• As a result, our declared national debt is nearly £800 billion.


• Although, actually, our real national debt is actually somewhere nearer £8 trillion.


• By 2016, just paying the interest on the debt is going to cost us in the region of £200 billion per year—or about £300,000 per household in Britain.


• There is no fucking money left.


• Despite the Coalition's "greatest assault on social democracy in living memory", they are on track to overspend by even more this year.


• That is because there are no cuts in spending—only a cut in the increase in spending.


• There. Is. No. Fucking. Money. Left.

It is about time that people—by which I mean commissioning editors—realised that Laurie Penny is not only a pig-ignorant self-serving nutcase, but also a bigoted, shallow fuckwit living in a fantasy world in which government spending is not the extorted product of people's hard work, but magic fucking money that falls from the sky.

Having said all of this (yes, yes: I know—very rude), the last paragraph of her pointless screed does contain some good points—more by luck than judgement. [Emphasis mine.]

That Labour does not have any answers for us is a disgusting display of the irrelevance of Westminster politics to the lives of ordinary citizens. If today's pathetic equivocation parade is a benchmark for the next four years of Labour politics, we will have to look elsewhere to find a voice in the hard, cold months ahead.

Westminster politics has long become irrelevant to the people of this country (except as an instrument of tyranny)—we know this.

But, more pertinently, Laurie, maybe (if you weren't a self-loathing sociopath) you might turn to real people, to the society that you profess to love, for comfort—rather than relying on the empty promises and meaningless platitudes of politicians to keep you warm at night.

Other than that, you'll just have to start putting some money into the meter, love...

UPDATE: removed "disappointing" link (see nwd comment below). We don't want another Gordon Brown's children debate, do we?*

UPDATE 2: if you want to know why I hold Penny Red—and others like her—in such contempt, it is because they are thieves, blackmailers and extortionists who do not even have the courage to do their thieving in person—instead contracting the state do to so on their behalf.

* An in-joke for very long-time readers.

Sick, but not in that way

Via England Expects, I find this pile of utter arse.

Sicknote WPC: 'Hating the boss is a disability'

Some police officers on sick leave hate their bosses so much it should be considered a disability, an employment tribunal heard.

This is typical of the public sector mindset—and that of many British people.

Hating your boss is not a disability, and it is absolutely fucking insulting to truly disabled people to suggest that this WPC's inability to deal with her personal circumstances is in any way comparable to their challenges.

I sincerely hope that WPC Alison Doyle is laughed out of court, as it were. And loses all of her pension, as well as being sued for everything that she's got.

Which, after 9 years on "the sick" probably ain't much. But let's have it anyway.

Ugly, bald, thieving, jug-eared media whore attacks noble, fearless bloggers

Nightmarish Fraggle, Andrew Marr. Pot, kettle, black.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Andrew Marr—NuLabour slut and moron du jour—and his delightfully broad attack on bloggers and other such unworthy people.

"A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting.

Your humble Devil lives in a third-floor flat many miles from his mother, has a full head of hair, distinctly unpimpled skin, finely-hewn aquiline features and is most firmly attached to a similarly prepossessing wife (whose opinion may or may not have been sought in the previous description).

Andrew Marr, however, is a bald, jug-eared, media whore whose pathetic and slavish devotion to NuLabour may or may not be influenced by his employment by the extortion-funded BBC and his marriage to Jackie Ashley, the raddled-looking harridan daughter of a life peer who writes for both The New Statesman and The Grauniad.

But, Andrew Marr is at least correct when he accuses bloggers of ranting. After all, whilst many of us are very angry about how our country has been systematically destroyed and our futures mortgaged by his favourite party, we are—alas—unable to use taxpayers' cash to get our points across. This leads to a certain amount of frustration and, inevitably, more than a soupcon of cathartic ranting.

But, as Anna Raccoon shows, we in the blogosphere can do some genuine good by providing crowd-sourcing and expertise to those oppressed by Andrew Marr's favourite little technocrats.

Furthermore, many blogs provide an invaluable insight into certain professions because they are written by people at the sharp end—people who genuinely know what is happening on the ground, or have a specialist knowledge of the subjects that they write about.

Which, for me, provide far more useful information about the true state of affairs than Andrew Marr reading some generalised crap—written by some underpaid graduate with a 2:2 in English Literature—off a fucking autocue. No amount of ridiculous arm-waving, Andrew, can substitute for a coherent piece written by someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

Those people are far more often found on blogs than on the BBC: after all, it wasn't so long ago that we angry, ranting bloggers were pointing out that no one in the BBC's environmental science team actually had anything approaching a science degree.

That said, Andrew Marr is reported as making one valid point.

The so-called "citizen journalists" will never offer a real replacement to newspapers and television news, he told Cheltenham Literature Festival.

He said: "Most citizen journalism strikes me as nothing to do with journalism at all.

This is true: most bloggers and citizen journalists do not (currently) have the resources to go and chase stories, nor do they have the connections (or the lawyers) to verify a great deal of stuff.

However, a large part of what many "journalists" do is not journalism either. These people do not unearth stories, dig them out and research them. No, a great many of these so-called journalists—including Jackie Ashley—are commentators.

And their jobs are, I believe, under threat from bloggers.

After all, in most media organisations, it is the journalists who are paid bugger all—whilst those (like Jackie and darling Polly) who combine ignorance and stupidity with piss-poor writing are the people who rake in six figure salaries.

If I were a cash-strapped media business, I would be looking to dispense with the services of these very expensive commenters (whose output is offered for free elsewhere) and concentrate on the area in which bloggers cannot truly compete—the area of news reporting.

Naturally, the fact that Mrs Marr's job is threatened by those who, often, have fewer constraints, more clearly declared prejudices, better knowledge of their specialist areas and, frankly, a more accessible and enjoyable writing style is—of course—nothing to do with little Andrew's sweeping comments about people that he does not, and cannot, know.

"Terrible things are said on line because they are anonymous. People say things on line that they wouldn't dream of saying in person."

Indeed, Andrew. Perhaps, when we meet, you can repeat your assertions about bloggers and I shall read this post back to you. And then we can all get back to doing what we do best: I can return to insulting media whores like yourself, and you can go back to licking Ed Miliband's bumhole.

In the meantime, how about you try to shut the fuck up...?

Chutzpah

Richard Murphy—a man retired from a profession only slightly less despised than that of lawyers—waxes lyrical about the right-wing blogosphere again.

[The "right wing blogosphere"] seem to be the ultimate definition of negativity—talk, and obstruction to all action for the common good.

I wonder if they ever actually created anything?

I'm sorry but... What?

I am a software designer and general creative artist. I have created hundreds of pieces of artwork for theatre shows, businesses, think tanks and charities, and designed and created a lot of software that enables people to be more productive in their work.

Richard, on the other hand, was an accountant.

And he is wondering if I have created anything...?

Timmy, of course, has a reply too...

The taxman cometh...

I know that I am somewhat late to this party (because, as usual, real life has been intruding on my blogging time), but there are a few pertinent points that I would like to make about the monumental tax fuck-up that has been doing the rounds over the last few weeks.

Almost 1.5 million workers face demands to pay back an average of £1,400 in tax after an error was found in calculations over the past two years.

HMRC has admitted that 5.7 million people have paid the wrong amount of tax due to errors in the tax code system.
The figure includes 1.4 million who have paid too little and will face demands for repayment as well as 4.3 million who paid too much and should receive rebates.

None of this is a surprise, really; many of us have been banging on for ages about the complexity of the tax system and, given that HMRC are a bunch of complete numpties, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

The Coalition blamed the last government for the fiasco. A senior Tory source said: “This happened because the last government failed to comprehensively reform the PAYE system. We are now dealing with that mess.”
...

A Treasury source said: “A decade of meddling and intervening made the tax affairs of millions of families and businesses across the UK extremely complicated.”

Yes, yes: so what are you going to do about it?

George Osborne, the Chancellor, has said he will introduce a fairer and simpler tax system. He is certain to use the meltdown at HMRC to push for further and swifter reforms to the way tax is calculated and collected.

Good. Just for the record, because it bears repeating yet again, here is how I would like to see the tax system operate (given a similar paradigm to the current one. Naturally enough, my preferred system is rather different, and involves consumption taxes as the primary tax source):

• A Personal Tax Allowance of around £12,000. Not only is it deeply immoral to tax the poor and then make them beg for a few nuggets of their money back, twelve grand is roughly the earnings of a full-time minimum wage earner. Further, the Rowntree Foundation have, oddly enough, calculated that the absolute poverty line is about £12,000 minus tax: if we don't tax low-earners, then we have raised thousands of people out of absolute poverty—result!


• A Flat Tax of around 22% on all personal earnings. Rather than worry about the source of the earnings (there are different rates of tax for salaries and dividends, for example: for more details, ask Richard Murphy), let's just tax what people receive—it's much easier to administer and we can remove some of the distortions from the market. And, for the record, Timmy agrees with me.
  

  Better by far to abolish corporation tax altogether and simply tax the income/returns when they arrive with people.
  
  After all, companies don’t pay tax, only people do: and we also know that 70% or so of the corporation tax burden is carried by the workers in the form of lower wages.

  
  There should be no exemptions (except possibly for pension, healthcare and unemployment contributions. Let's get people used to paying into these as soon as possible, in order to soften the blow when we finally abolish the National Insurance Ponzi Scheme).

All of this will make life far simpler. It will also make collecting tax far more efficient, reducing fiscal churn and enabling the money that is collected to have far more purchasing power.

However, I don't expect George Osbourne to be anything like this radical because he's a weaselly little bastard with no balls—and the same applies to his massively-foreheaded twat of an organ-grinder.

Although, there are a couple of rays of hope that maybe—just maybe—George is thinking of something slightly radical. The first is the fact that, only a few days after the news of the mistakes were reported, the Treasury came out with this utter toss.

HM Revenue and Customs could take direct control of every worker’s monthly pay cheque under plans to overhaul the error-prone income tax system.

Instead of employers deducting income tax then paying gross salaries to employees, the gross monthly payment would go to an HMRC-run tax “calculator”, which would then pass the net salary to the worker.

So, let me get this straight: HMRC—which has proven its colossal incompetence by not only fucking up the PAYE tax assessments of millions of people but was also, lest we forget, responsible for one of the biggest data losses of all time—thinks that it can make things better by taking on the monthly (or weekly) pay assessments of every single worker in the country.

Are these bastards insane?

Not only that, of course, but it undermines the fundamental point that it is our fucking money—earned by our hard work. It doesn't belong to the fucking state, and these absolute cunts should be absolutely fucking ashamed that anyone—anyone—could seriously suggest this measure (even were these incompetent bastards actually capable of administering such a mammoth system with any degree of competence).

Brian Stenhouse of Armstrong Watson, which runs payroll services for more than 2,000 companies, said people should have “deep concerns” about the central deductions plan.

He said: “Are people going to be happy to give HMRC their bank details and trust HMRC to make the right deductions and pass on their salary every month?

“Given they’re not going to have a complete monthly payslip any more, people are going to be in dark about what’s been deducted. And if there is an error, they’d be reliant on HMRC to correct it.”

Anyone confident in HMRC's willingness to correct mistakes in a timely manner? No, I didn't think so.

Oh, and don't forget it has been ruled that HMRC are not responsible or liable for any errors that they make—so good luck trying to pursue any damages claims against them.

My rage, contempt and indignation is, of course, shared by Timmy...

Concentrate instead upon the moral logic of this. All of our money isn’t really our money. It’s the State’s, all must be reliant upon that beneficient State for every penny of whatever dribble of income they might allow us.

Err, no. “Treasury ministers” who are advocating this can fuck off and die: and the Coalition they rode in on.

... and my impecunious Greek friend (whose peripatetic ways mean that he would not be currently affected—a fact that does little to dampen his ire).

You have to be fucking yanking my baws. Giving the state all my money and then petitioning them to tell me how much they took? No, no, I think not, you dickless fucking cretins. You've just demonstrated that you can't even add up correctly; I'm certainly not giving you my wallet while you count off the tenners you plan to leech off me. I'd be better off throwing it into the fucking sea.

Indeed, the angry baby describes a tax system that would, I feel, be rather better than the current one.

No, I propose the exact opposite. Every year, I propose that each taxpayer receive an itemised statement from HMRC, providing a detailed breakdown of how every penny of your taxes has been spent—£431.20 on the NHS, £193.31 on the police, 59p subsidising MPs' booze, 2p on duck houses, etc. etc.—and countersigned, for good measure, by your local MP. Is it value for money? Does it reflect my priorities to some minimal degree? Am I happy with the political representative that nodded it through? If so, then I may - generously, if through gritted teeth—cut you a cheque; and yes, you can just fucking wait three days for the money to clear like the rest of us, you fucking bastards.

You work for us, you unspeakable cunts, not the other way round. Don't forget it.

So, given the predictable outrage, either this is a bunch of disgruntled Treasury Civil Servants attempting to direct some fire at their Coalition masters, or something rather more subtle is going on.

And this brings me to the second point—one which was rather well articulated, over a beer, by Simon Goldie (the kind of libertarian LibDem that I could see myself working with, by the way).

Simon's contention, and it is one that I was mulling myself, was that all of this was softening up the various vested interests for a massive simplification of the tax structure by Our New Coalition Overlords™. Tax simplification has been opposed by many barking fucking loonies, arrogant and ignorant ne'er-do-wells, and evil arseholes (both of them); however, it would be difficult for even those tits to oppose something with a massive groundswell of public opinion.

So, the announcement of the balls-up in PAYE taxes plus the absolutely insane solution proposed above might get people thinking that maybe HMRC is not people by fluffy bunnies and do-gooders and that, just possibly, there might be a better way of handling this whole tax thing.

With Osbourne's Spending Report coming up soon, now is the time to start agitating for a simpler system that doesn't involve us begging the state for our money.

Let us hope that George has something good for us—frankly, Our New Coalition Overlords™ have not impressed me yet (and they certainly haven't made my life better by even one iota) and I'm getting slightly tired of waiting...