The SNP: timely as ever

One might almost believe that the SNP were eagerly monitoring the Kitchen, alert for any sign of the guidance that your humble Devil (as a former resident) might offer these benighted politicians.

Just a few hours ago, I pointed out that the Scottish Parliament had the opportunity to test the Scots' social conscience by means of access to their wallets...

The supposed driver for this is that Scotland is a "more socialist" country, willing to pay more tax in order to stave off the tyranny of austerity. This narrative is, of course, bollocks: were it not, the SNP (also the dominant party in Holyrood) would already have used the tax-raising powers that the Parliament has—up to 3p in the pound extra in income tax, if I recall correctly.

And now, in the face of further cuts from Westminster, it seems that the SNP—now dominant in both Westminster and Holyrood—are flinging up their kilts and showing everyone what big balls they have.

John Swinney has admitted he is “considering” increasing income tax in Scotland next year to fill the gap in public spending from cuts by the Tory UK government.
...

ollowing a summit in Whitehall with Chancellor George Osborne, the deputy first minister said that he could be prepared to use powers handed to Holyrood from the 2012 Scotland Bill to set a Scottish income tax rate above that of the rest of the UK.

An increase of 1p in income tax north of the Border would, according to the Scotland Office, raise £330 million for the Scottish Government.

How exciting—let us see how keen the Scots are, indeed, to show how they are different to the UK. Oh, wait...

The move has echoes of the SNP’s “penny for Scotland” in the first Holyrood election in 1999, where they lost heavily to Labour after proposing to raise income tax.

Not so keen then.

But, given their earlier failure, what has driven the SNP to contemplate this dreadful message (apart from the fact that, politically, they have the people of Scotland in a double headlock)?

[Swinney] went on: “The cut of £107m is substantially lower than the UK government’s original estimate but is still too bitter a pill to swallow.

“This comes on top of an overall budget cut of 9 per cent since 2010, including a 25 per cent cut to the capital budget.

“It is completely unacceptable for reductions to be imposed in this financial year to the budget that has already been agreed by the Scottish Parliament.”

Ah, no: this is what happens when you have relied on an overly generous relative for many years—and that relative runs out of money. It doesn't matter what plans you may have made: said relative simply cannot pay for them.

So, unless you are going to get off your fat arse and fund those plans yourself, you must alter said plans.

Mr Swinney also made it clear he told Mr Osborne that he “does not have a mandate in Scotland”, with the Conservatives winning just one seat and suffering the lowest proportion of votes since 1865.

Yes, Mr Swinney: but, equally, that means that Mr Osborne has precisely nothing to lose by slashing Scotland's budget to ribbons, and sending the savings to places where the Tories might actually win more voters, e.g. almost anywhere in England (or even Wales or Ireland).

But the threat of an increase in tax was condemned by the Scottish Conservatives, whose leader Ruth Davidson has made a pledge that her party would try to block tax rises in the next parliament after the Holyrood elections.

A spokesman for Ms Davidson said: “The new tax powers for the Scottish Parliament should not mean higher taxes for the Scottish people.

Why not? If the Scots want increased public services and less austerity, why should they not pay for it?

“The Scottish Conservatives have pledged to ensure that taxes will not be higher as a result of the devolution of these powers.

“There is no reason why John Swinney should not be able to issue the same assurance to families and businesses in Scotland.”

Well, apart from him actually being in power—and having to make some derisory effort to balance the books. Apart from that, Ruth.

But what about the oil, eh? Well, as chokkablog points out, this is not really going to help that much.

Three times in the last 15 years the oil tide has risen high enough to submerge the underlying £1,700 per capita deficit difference and give Scotland a lower deficit than the rest of the UK. When the oil tide flows out we can see more of that underlying £1,700/person deficit difference, we see more of the £9.1bn.

So let's take a closer look at the oil figures.

For Scotland to cover the underlying £9.1bn deficit gap we need total North Sea oil revenues of £10.1bn (because c.90% of North Sea oil revenues are attributable to Scotland).

And the projections for the next few years are nothing like £10.1bn: in fact, for 2015–16 oil is likely to raise just £600 million—short by £9.5 billion. That's rather more than 10% of Scotland's GDP.
John Swinney must be pretty desperate to even consider increasing income tax in Scotland.

If the SNP do get full fiscal economy, the man will probably shit himself.

And with good reason...

Scientists hoist by their own petard

Now, as we all know, there is a pressing problem that we have—all this carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is warming the planet and we are all going to fry unless we severely reduce our output of said gas.

Unfortunately, nearly all of the effective ways of generating the energy that makes our world go round emit CO₂ to a large extent; but, so severe is the problem, our politicians have responded to the urging of the scientific experts and put in place a number of measures to make carbon emission—and thus energy generation—much more expensive.

Now, do remember that this is all climate scientists because, of course, there is a "consensus" on the climate change topic. And almost all other scientists have urged us to listen to the climate scientists because they know what they are talking about and we laymen—even those who have a rather more specialist knowledge of statistical analysis or computer model programming—have no idea at all.

So, basically, we can say that the vast majority of the world's scientists back urgent action on carbon emissions: energy must be made much more expensive. Oh, wait, we didn't mean for us!

World-class research into future sources of green energy is under threat in Britain from an environmental tax designed to boost energy efficiency and drive down carbon emissions, scientists claim.

Some facilities must find hundreds of thousands of pounds to settle green tax bills, putting jobs and research at risk.

Altogether now... Aaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha! Aaaaahahahaha! Ah-ha! Ha!

Wait—let me catch my breath.

Aaaaaaaaaahaahahahahahahahaa! Aaaaaahahaha.

Whew.

Right. I... Aaaaahahaha. Ha.

OK, no, really, I'm sorry. I haven't laughed that much since Chris Huhne admitted that he drove a car.

Anyway, so, what are these scientists going to do? Could it be that they are going to cough up gladly, pointing out that this is precisely the outcome that they wanted? Ah, no.

The unexpected impact of the government's carbon reduction commitment (CRC) scheme is so severe that scientists and research funders have lobbied ministers for an exemption to reduce the bills.

No, absolutely not.

Alright, I admit that a good deal of the satisfaction of the above is based purely on spite: you bastards (as in the scientific community) insisted that we take action on climate change—and you got it. I don't see why everyone but you should suffer.

Yes, it might seem counter-intuitive that government-funded initiatives should have to pay government taxes (in the same way that it might seem odd that government-funded jobs need to pay taxes) but there are, as Timmy points out, a couple of valid reasons (i.e. ones not based on spite) why scientists should not be exempt.

1. It would be a subsidy. And we want subsidies to be out in the open. We want to be able to add up what whatever rule or regulation, tax or charge, actually costs us. So we don’t want any hidden subsidies at all. This applies to everything: council house rents should be full market rents, even if that means everyone gets housing benefit. We can then look at the benefit bill and see how much housing the poor costs us. Trains and farmers should pay full whack on fuel duty, even if that means we then have to send them a cheque to compensate. We want to be able to see, exactly, what their subsidy is.


2. We absolutely do not want things run by politicians and bureaucrats to be free of the rules politicians and bureuacrats impose upon the rest of us. It’s our only hope of reducing the complexities, that they have to struggle with their impositions as we do. Note the screams from MPs as their expenses are doled out in the same manner the dole is doled out. Quite bloody right too.

But it is very entertaining, nonetheless, to listen to the various sob stories highlitedby the Grauniad article...

Among the worst hit is the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, a facility for research into almost limitless carbon-free energy. The lab faces an estimated £400,000 payment next year, raising the spectre of job losses and operational cuts. "Considering our research is aimed at producing zero-carbon energy, it seems ironic and perverse to clobber us with an extra bill," a senior scientist at the lab said. "We have to use electricity to run the machine and there is no way of getting around that."

And that is different from other businesses how, exactly?

Oh, by the way, you're flogging a dead horse: you may have the largest fusion reactor in Europe but if it actually generated, you know, any electricity then you could offset the costs, eh? But it doesn't.

Another Oxfordshire laboratory, the Diamond synchrotron light source, expects a £300,000 bill under the CRC. A spokesman said the lab hoped to offset the bill by investing in better climate control and motion-sensitive lighting.

Well, that's what the government is telling private businesses to do—why should it not apply to these scientist types?

At the Daresbury laboratory in Cheshire, the CRC bill will worsen financial woes that have forced managers to draft redundancy packages and consider cutting back on equipment. "Science is already struggling here and now we are being charged an additional premium to go about our everyday business while working to address the government's own stated grand challenges in science for the 21st century.," said Lee Jones, an accelerator physicist at the laboratory.

Well, we are all doing that, Lee: after all, some of us have to try to "address the government's own stated grand challenges" for GDP growth over the next five years—also in the face of rising costs and taxes.

So, with all due respect, o science types, you can take your exemption and stuff it up your pontificating arseholes.

Quote of the day...

... comes from Toby Young's scathing appraisal of socialist media darling, economic illiterate and all-round arse, Laurie Penny.

She’s so earnest, so self-absorbed, it’s impossible to take her seriously. Almost everything she writes is beyond parody, as if she’s the creation of a brilliant Right-wing satirist rather than a real person...

In many ways, I would love to believe that Penny is, in fact, such a creation.

Alas, I fear that this is not the case, and that Laurie is not only real but just as self-absorbed, fatuous and earnestly pretentious as the articles that fall like turds from her metaphorical pen.

Laurie Penny would be funny—if she were an invention rather than a dangerously influential parody of an intelligent and knowledgable human being...

UPDATE: back in February, young Penny wondered at her fortunate state...

So, I'm experiencing a bit of vertigo. Nine months ago I had just over a thousand Twitter followers; now it’s nearly thirteen thousand. Nine months ago it was a huge nerve-wracking fiasco for me to talk on a regional radio driveshow; last month I was a panellist on Any Questions. Nine months ago I was a blogger in the process of trying to improve my writing in the hopes of someday, maybe, being a ‘proper’ commentator’; I’m now a columnist for the country’s foremost leftwing magazine, earning a living as a full-time comment-and-features journo, and have written opinion pieces for the Guardian, the Evening Standard, the Independent and others. I got to talk at the Fabian Society conference! People from the BBC sometimes ring me up and ask what I think about things!

Penny thinks! Super! But don't worry—Laurie is not letting any of this go to her head. Actually, maybe she has—but that is all going to stop...

Meanwhile, I’m gradually learning how to handle all the pressure without being a total dickhead.

We're waiting...

Any time now...

UPDATE 2: the wife was at Wadham College, Oxford, at the same time as Ms Penny...

But stacked against everything else that comes out of Wadham College, what is Laurie Penny really doing?

She is travelling an extremely well-trodden road bearing the placard of thoroughly-explored philosophies. And the destination, reached so many times before, has benefitted no one except the travellers themselves.

This is not a condition, I fear, that is exclusive to Wadham...

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.

The new Green narrative

With the science around catastrophic anthropogenic climate change (CACC) starting to unravel and more and more evidence of exaggeration of the consequences coming to light, the eco-loons are scrabbling around frantically for a new narrative with which to fuel the terror needed to sustain their quasi-religious dogma.

And it seems that they have found it, and that narrative can be summed up in two simple words—Godwin's Law.

Don't believe me? Via Bishop Hill, here's arch-Greenie James Lovelock—writing on the 29 March—telling us how we should confront this impending doom. [Emphasis mine.]

One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is "modern democracy", he added. "Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

Now, as regular readers of The Kitchen will know, I am no fan of democracy—it simply being the tyranny of the majority expressed in a voting system—but it is the best system that we know for preserving liberty. And why?

Because some demagogue cunt like James Lovelock cannot oppress us in order to pursue his lunatic obsession. Of course, the disadvantage of democracy is that all of our main parties are also oppressing us to pursue their lunatic Green credentials but, then, since so much of said oppression is had down from their EU masters on high, their is little that any of these lily-livered politicos can do about it.

But, just to ram home the point, I shall steal Longrider's words in order to paint a picture of the kind of hideousness that Lovelock is contemplating.

Close your eyes for a moment and picture Gordon Brown deciding that he will now lead a war cabinet – a coalition government of national unity for the foreseeable future and this will be a long war. How does that make you feel? So, should we follow Lovelocks’s thinking and suspend democracy?

Horrible, I think you'll agree. Anyway, I digress...

Lovelock has already espoused the idea that climate change is akin to a Total War situation for, remember, the last time that we suspended democracy in this country was in World War II.

So, imagine my total lack of surprise when, via the prolific Tom Nelson, I find an article by the High Priest of CACC, James Hansen, written on 5 April and also drawing a parallel between CACC and the second world war.

The predominant moral issue of the 21st century, almost surely, will be climate change, comparable to Nazism faced by Churchill in the 20th century and slavery faced by Lincoln in the 19th century. Our fossil fuel addiction, if unabated, threatens our children and grandchildren, and most species on the planet.

These moral equivalences have been drawn before by loony Green nutters, but now that the big boys have broken cover with their narrative du jour, expect to see a lot more of this "CACC is like fighting the Nazis" bullshit.

That is, of course, if these watermelon bastards—such as Greenpeace—aren't actively threatening you.

We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.

And we be many, but you be few.

Sssh, I think I hear Greenpeace at the door! Oh god, they're coming in! What—what do you want...?

"For you, Devil, ze war is over. It is off to ze work camps for you, schnell..."

Noooooooooooo...

TRANSMISSION TERMINATES.

Mad Nad: declaring war on scantily clad women

Corrupt Tory MP, "Mad" Nad Dorries has another target in her sights right now—posters of scantily-clad women.

If you live or work in London you simply cannot help but be confronted by posters adorning the sides of all TFL buses depicting three beautiful teenage lingerie models. The poster is frankly OTT. Since when did it become acceptable to have larger than life posters of provocative and scantily clad women moving up and down every street in London? Where did the mystery go?

Woah! Could this be the same Nadine Dorries who carries a prominent picture of a scantily-clad ropey old boiler surrounded by other scantily-clad (and possibly under-age) girls on her blog's header banner...?


Yes. Yes, it could.

Oh, where did the mystery go, Nadine? Where?

Oh woe.

For the love of chips

When I read this story about the government wanting to interfere with the size of chips—found over at JuliaM's place—I was going to write something sweary and exasperated. Fortunately, The Daily Mash got there first.

GORDON Brown last night added the size of chip shop chips to his list of things to dick about with.

As the government's healthy eating experts told chip shops to increase the size of their chips by 32.7%, across the county 58 million people said 'oh for the love of fucking Christ' in perfect unison.

A spokesman for the Food Standards Agency said chips 32.7% bigger than average have less saturated fat, can form part of a balanced diet and blah, blah, fucking blah, his whiny little voice piercing the stillness like a red hot needle of unbelievably annoying dickishness.
...

And Charlie Reeves, a chip eater from Stevenage, said: "What are you doing? Seriously, what do you think you're doing?"

"I've had a hard day at work and I am just trying to have a bag of chips, you utter fucking prick."

He added: "I'm telling you right now - fuck the deficit, the environment, Afghanistan and the NHS. I will vote for whichever politician says this exact sentence - 'Chip shops can serve chips in whatever size they want'.

"I'm so tired."

Meanwhile, in a small cafe in Doncaster, van driver Martin Bishop placed his knife and fork gently next to his plate of haddock and chips, dragged his hands wearily down his face and added: "What? What the fuck is it now?

"Oh Jesus Christ, can I just have my dinner? I'm begging you. Can I just. Please. Have. My fucking. Dinner?"

Do I sense some slight desperation in this Mash article? I think I do. And it can only be because The Daily Mash is a satirical website and this cunting fucking government is now pretty much beyond satire.

And you know what? In order to win the election by a landslide, all David Cameron has to do is to promise (credibly) that this kind of shit will not happen under a Tory government...

...

...

Uh, Dave...? Dave, that was your cue...

Hello...?

Could the Barbary Ape win?

Pater Devil has been maintaining that he will vote Tory on the grounds that "these fuckers have to go" (and the pater does not use sweary language with anything like the frequency of his eldest off-spring) or that he "would vote for a Barbary Ape to get these bastards out of government".

You would have thought that these would be uncontentious statements—after all, Labour (and especially Brown) has, without question, been a complete fucking disaster. The Labour Party has failed in all of the objectives that it claimed for itself—the government has not been "whiter than white"; despite vast increases in funding its policies on "education, education, education" have left us with a deeply uneducated workforce; Patsy Hewitt admitted that billions poured into the NHS had been wasted; thre has most definitely not been "an end to boom and bust"; the country has been pulled into three disastrous and illegal wars (the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq); social mobility has decreased; and the government is now spending about £150 billion more per year than taxes bring in.

And yet somehow—fuck knows how!—the Tories don't seem to be able to take a decisive lead.

The “people’s bonus” plan comes as a Sunday Times/YouGov survey today reveals that the Tories’ lead over Labour has slipped to the narrowest gap in more than a year.

The poll, the first in a series of weekly surveys which will be conducted between now and the general election, puts the Conservatives on 39%, down one point on January’s figure, and Labour on 33%, up two. The Liberal Democrats drop one point to 17%.

6%? That's fucking pathetic. How the hell have the Tories managed it and, more importantly for those who believe that they are the only ones who can save us from that Barbary Ape in Number 10, how the hell can they pull ahead?

In the Times, Dr Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute reckons that the Tories should focus on growing the economy.

Focus on growth. Don’t argue about cuts

The battle of the economists is a sideshow. We must urgently put money into entrepreneurs’ hands
...

Public spending does not stimulate growth. It merely takes cash from where investors think it will create mid and long-term returns and puts it where politicians think they will get the best short-term political return.
...

Indeed, maybe the right time to cut government spending is actually when things are bad, because government spending is inherently wasteful. In 2007, economists at the European Central Bank calculated that with a bit of tweaking, the Government could deliver exactly the same level of public services but with 16 per cent less spending. When the Government already takes nearly half the nation’s income, that saving would be a huge boost to struggling businesses all over the country.

This is a point of view, and it is one that Burning Our Money shares—although Wat Tyler feels that people are not going to realise just how bad things are until the storm actually breaks.

How can the Tory poll lead be collapsing? Or to put it another way, how can Dave be so ineffective at capitalising on Bean's disasters and offering a clear alternative?

There is a school of thought - to which Tyler has subscribed - that says we need to see the actual invasion before we'll be convinced. We need to see that much-trailed collapse in market confidence, complete with sterling plunge, huge hike in bond yields, and Darling frozen in the TV lights outside HMT.

But Tyler's now beginning to wonder. Would that actually do it? What if Comrade Bean held an immediate morale boosting parade in Red Square (as Stalin did in November 1941)? Comrade Mandelsonski nodding gravely by his side, he reminds us that such a moment of national destiny is no time for a lightweight novice from the PR industry flip-flopping all over the place.

He, the Great Helmsman, has learned from previous mistakes, he will now always listen to his generals, and he stands ready to form a government of national unity with Comrade Cleggomov and St Vincenzo. It is time for all True Patriots to set aside past differences, to rally to the flag, and to defend the Motherland!

It is this kind of approach that the Labour Party seems to be taking, as this interview with Douglas Alexander seems to suggest.

He said: "We must not allow the Tories to frame the election as a choice between status quo and change. What we want is a choice between two competing visions of the future."

Yes, Comrades: ignore the past and look forward to our Glorious Future!

And, in the meantime, everyone wonders what the fuck the Buttered New Potato is playing at. Part of the problem is that Cameron has had a charisma by-pass and this is allied with the fact that we have no real idea of what the Tories are planning to do. Where we do have an idea, e.g. school vouchers, the Conservative policy is seriously undermined by the fact that the Tories don't seem to understand why said policy works and, as a consequence, make it look shit, e.g. still controlling what and how schools teach.

The wife feels that the Tories should not, in fact, be concentrating on the money at all.

First, begin immediately to practise what you preach re: accountability, openness, responsiveness by operating the Conservative party according to these standards. The party is a large organisation very like a government; its own record on these matters will be viewed as an accurate predictor of how the Conservatives will run the government itself. So stop the stupid infighting about selection. Stop providing local associations with shortlists chosen by non-local party leadership. Sure, you might end up with a load of straight, white male PPCs as a result, but that won’t matter because you’ll have shown that you encourage localism and democracy within your own organisation, thus giving voters more confidence that you’ll encourage it across the nation when you’re in charge.

Second, announce everything you intend to do to protect or, if necessary, restore civil liberties. Without mentioning Labour, enumerate every piece of legislation you will repeal or amend to this end. Commit to destroying the NIR and ID cards, repealing the Coroners and Justice Bill, the Digital Economy Bill (if these things have passed), the Civil Contingencies Act, RIPA, etc. If you think a Bill of Rights is desired by the populace, produce a draft and circulate it. Invite suggestions, consultations, the contributions of legal experts, constitutional experts, and so on. Actually tell the country how you intend to ensure the restoration and protection of ancient and long-held liberties.

Then leave the money stuff for later. You’re the opposition party; you don’t have access to the information you need in order to make credible promises about finance. You don’t have access to the civil service brains in the Treasury who could explain the ins and outs of the budget and recommend cuts that wouldn’t affect ‘frontline services.’ You don’t even really know where the money comes from. So quit throwing around silly figures like £7 billion. Instead, reassure people that you are committed to responsible financial management and eliminating waste, and promise that one of your first, if not your actual first, undertakings in Government will be a thorough and completely open auditing of the country’s books, after which you will commit to responsible financial practices and put the budget back into the hands of Parliament as a whole – in which every expenditure, saving, tax cut, or tax rise will have to be approved by the legislature before you can implement it.

I tend to think that this would be a good approach—one of the worst failings of the Tories is that they have failed to bother building a coherent vision of what the country might look like under their stewardship.

One of Cameron's most terrible omissions has been his utter silence on civil liberties—apart from the ID Cards. For fuck's sake, one of his own front bench resigned from his job and called a by-election on this issue!

The civil liberties issue is bound in tightly with the financial issue too, as Milton Friedman acknowledged.

I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, "How do you hold down government spending?" Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes.

Which is why I am so gutted that I was unable to attend a recent Adam Smith Institute event at which the Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, talked about his country's proposed Liberty Act. [Emphasis mine.]

However, the main function of the evening was for the President to outline plans for one of the most sensible pieces of legislation enacted since the United States' Constitution: The Liberty Act. This seeks to constitutionally enshrine the economic reforms pursued since the Rose revolution, by imposing a strict cap on the remit and size of any future government. Under the Act, government spending is not permitted to exceed 30% of GDP, while the budget deficit is capped at 3% and public debt at 60%. Price controls and state ownership of financial institutions are banned, and no new taxes or increase in tax rates can be imposed without a referendum.
...

One question in particular elicited a marvellous response. When asked why he was seeking to bind his successors, the President promptly replied, "I don't trust any government, including my own".

Which is an entirely excellent attitude to take: I don't trust any government either—it's just unusual to hear that any politician say so. Mind you, we British didn't spend fifty years living under the Communist jackboot—so we are merrily creating a British jackboot government all of our own.

But, to return to the issue at hand, I believe that there is one single issue outlined in that section above that would win the Tories the next election. Did you spot it? Yup, it's this bit...

... no new taxes or increase in tax rates can be imposed without a referendum.

There's your election-winning strategy right there, Cameron. But you won't deploy it, will you? No, that would severely limit your control over us all—as Uncle Milt pointed out.

As the wife pointed out in a later post (she's really much better at analysing and articulating these things than your humble Devil), the point is that the Tories and Labour really aren't that far apart.

The function of the Republican party in the United States and the Conservative Party in Britain is to disguise the fact that the country is ruled by what is essentially a one-party statist blob. Superficially, R/Cs may differ from Democrats/Labour on such issues as abortion, gay marriage, the role of family, etc – but the keen observer will notice that regarding all of these superficial issues, the solution on both sides is statist intervention of one form or another. Abortion – legal or illegal? Gay marriage – legal or illegal? Whatever the outcome, it will always be determined by some fiat legislation or judicial decree. Rarely does either side say, ‘Hey, these things are not for the government to decide.’

That, of course, is the function of the Libertarian Party—although we are constantly trying to juggle pragmatism and principle.

The trouble is that people do not seem to want to hear these arguments. The vast majority of comments concerning my party that I get are derogatory—they are all along the lines of "yeah? And how many votes will you get?" or "you aren't libertarian enough: I'm considerably more libertarian than yeeeeooow".

Rarely does anyone pop up to say "thank fuck that at least one political party is even thinking in this way" or "you might be wrong on this but I'd like to help you to form a practical policy on it".

It seems that even the libertarians floating around the blogosphere don't want a Libertarian Party (or not this or that particular one)—so why the hell should the Tories (let alone Labour) edge that way for the vast majority of the population who don't even claim to be libertarian?

So, the Tories will carry on tinkering at the edges and the political pendulum will keep swinging between Tories and Labour—sometimes one will win sometimes the other.

The only thing that is absolutely certain, no matter which one of those statist parties wins, is that the British people will lose—lose their money, lose their freedom, lose their pride.

It's a depressing thought.

The monarchy

Strange though it might seem, many of my views have become less trenchant as time wears on*. Personally, I blame you fuckers: no sooner do I think that I know what the hell I think than some commenter pops up with a reasonable objection. It's fucking annoying: how the hell am I going to turn into the traditional Bufton Tufton if I'm not allowed to continue holding outmoded views in the face of all reason, eh?

Anyway, one of the institutions that I have mixed feelings about is the monarchy. I have, in the past, defended the role of Contitutional Monarch, and for much the same—entirely practical—reasons that Obnoxio has today.

It's crucial that I explain why. A constitutional monarchy is not the endgame objective of any Libertarian. It is profoundly unlibertarian that someone can rule over you by accident of birth. However, through happy accident, it transpires that having a ruling monarch that is required to give assent to laws, along with two strong chambers of debate is a pretty good mix for reasonable governance in a democratic, rather than an anarchic state.

And while a lot of libertarians resent the land-ownership of the hereditary peers, the fact that they weren't all from the grasping, venal classes actually made them quite good custodians of our rights. If you look at the regime of New Labour, for instance, the official opposition was utterly useless in the Commons and all the serious defence of the common man ironically came from the Lords. And if we look at the rapid increase in common petty theft in the Lords, is it any surprise that it has all come about since Labour started throwing the money out there to be taken and then appointing people from the grasping, venal classes?

I'm not saying the Lords were saints before, but because they were disinterested and there wasn't really anything in it for them, they tended to either not bother at all or take it seriously for its own sake. Sure they could influence big deals for their own back pocket, but they weren't inspired to enact draconian laws because they'd get a chunk of cash for pitching up and then being "whipped" to vote.

Whether you regard it as class, or breeding, or just some kind of good sense and disinterest, the peers have acquitted themselves much better than our elected representatives, who do not represent us, but rather the interests of their party. And really, for this to work properly, you do need a stronger monarch.

And that's all well and good because what we are really interested in is the best way of governing—and the best method of government is one where numerous executive factions all shit on one another and thus pass no laws whatsoever.

But the trouble is that, whilst I can and will happily defend the theoretical role of the monarch (or hereditary head of state), the simple fact is that the Queen has done a fucking awful job; it is not only the Scary Clown that points this out, but Dr Eamonn Butler of the ASI too (in a passage from his new book, The Alternative Manifesto**).

I hate to say it, but as a constitutional monarch, she has been pathetic. Over her reign, she has allowed government politicians to accumulate frightening power. She has merely stood by as they cast aside all restraint, including the basic rights, liberties and institutions that were fought for precisely to protect us from arbitrary authority.
At first, of course, they were intended to protect us from the power of absolute monarchs. In time, though, Parliament replaced the monarch as sovereign; but these same rules worked equally well at restraining politicians too. Ministers knew that they were only the temporary custodians of the public trust; and that their power was checked and balanced by MPs, the civil service, and the courts.

Indeed, the monarchy itself became one of these balancing institutions. It may seem bizarre in a democracy that the monarch is notionally the head of the government, the church, the peerage and the army; but the reason we keep it that way is not so that monarchs can wield power, but so as to keep unlimited power out of the hands of politicians. For most of the time, our monarchs have had a better grasp of the mood of the people, and of the importance of their rights and freedoms, than have ministers: so this has proved a useful arrangement.

The key constitutional role of monarchs today, then, is to stop politicians from usurping power and turning themselves into an elected dictatorship. But the Queen – perhaps confusing the exercise of this role with political interference – has allowed precisely that to happen. With Magna Carta, the Queen’s distant ancestor agreed to fundamental principles such as our right not to be held without trial, and to be tried by a jury. Yet in her own reign (starting perhaps in 1971 with internment in Northern Ireland, but escalating fast in the last dozen years) these rights, and more, have simply been signed away.

The constitutional role of an unelected, hereditary monarchy must be limited. But it does have a constitutional role, and must exercise that role as a necessary counterweight to the otherwise unbridled power of an executive that – through its majority and its patronage – is in complete control of Parliament.

In other words, the Queen has done a fucking awful job—and her utter failure has not only destroyed the credibility of the role itself but, more egregiously, consigned the citizens of Great Britain to servitude under a tyrannical Executive.

And, let's face, Charles is going to be about 20,000,000,000,000,000 times worse. Before his reign is over, that cunt will have us bowing to Mecca morning, noon and night, with a fucking windmill shoved up our arseholes.

So, one of two things needs to happen: either we get rid of the monarchy and replace it with a President with Executive power, or we get rid of the current bunch of jokers and stage another Glorious Revolution.

And you know what? I'd look pretty fucking good in a crown...

* Also, I'm bored with blogging at the moment. I've become so fucking earnest, it's like I've turned into the most tedious type of left-wing arsehole. Plus, of course, othing interesting is happening***—we're all just waiting for this spectacularly shit but walking dead government to shuffle off this mortal coil so that we can welcome in another slightly-less-spectacularly-shit government to come in and bugger us backwards for yet more cash. It's incredibly fucking depressing.

** I drink colossal amounts of the ASI's booze: the least I can do is plug their books...

*** Except, of course, that I've been proved right about climate change alarmism. That's good, but what's now to fight for?

In a strop

Kevin Boatang (left) and John Demetriou: "I'm sorry, but I can't help noticing that we are considerably more libertarian than yeeeeoooow."

First, if anyone isn't interested in blogging flame wars, I suggest that you skip this post. If, however, you enjoy pseudonymous wankers throwing insults across the web at each other, then read on, dear chap, read on...

Anyway, I don't normally pay any attention to blogging minnows Boatang and Demetriou: not because they are blogging minnows, you understand, but because they are strident, tedious, can't write for shit and, moreover, appear to be vying for the Most Unpleasant Shits On The Interwebs Award.

However, they have been slagging me off quite vociferously recently—and slagging off LPUK—so I have felt it incumbent upon me to wade into the tedious cesspool that is their comment threads—threads usually characterised by one or other of these fractious fools telling perfectly reasonable people to "fuck off".

Another classic trope for Boaty & D (as they like to style themselves) is to maintain that they are, in fact, considerably more libertarian than yeeeooooow. Yes, yeeeooow. Which is why, of course, this pair of numpties spend the majority of their time slagging off libertarians and libertarian bloggers.

Unless, of course, they are just whoreing for visitors—which means that I have just fallen into their cunning trap. But fuck it, this is fun...

So, anyway, as you might imagine, this "more libertarian than yeeeooow" meme is somewhat tiring—especially since the both of them favour considerably more government intervention than I do (your humble Devil is, apparently, "an anarcho-capitalist extremist and possibly a feudalist") and I tend to favour optimum outcomes over pure libertarian ideals.

Still, ever eager to point out hypocrisy in those who set themselves up as leaders of men—as Boaty & D most certainly do—I thought it might be appropriate to highlight a thrilling piece of idiocy from Dumb-ty and Dumber-ty.

It starts with this gem, from J Demetriou, over at the gruesome twosome's place... [Emphasis mine.]

Seriously, we don't think we are the most libertarian out there, and all others less so. We are fucked off that libertarianism has been cornered, hijacked and exclusively defined by a small number of people on the hard right. We seek to expand what it means, not constrict it, and we don't have this 'you're not a libertarian' thing going on, as much as you keep arguing it.

And again, here's J Demetriou denying the truth with all the force of his wee lungs...

You've made the same 'mistake' (or is it more deliberate than that?) as DK. We do not think we are 'more libertarian than yeeeaoow', and we don't seek to arrogantly decide who is and who isn't libertarian.

I ask you to point out any evidence of where we have done that.

Which is weird. Because, you see, I have decided to pick up the gauntlet and... wait! What's this? Oh, on my bad-tempered union post below, the great J left the following comment.

You're no libertarian, you're a joker.

As I said, they are considerably more libertarian than yeeeoooow.

In fact, of course, JD is absolutely right: Boaty & D are not "the most libertarian out there"—they are barely libertarian at all. Which is why, of course, the great JD can post horseshit like this...

But all I see in the LPUK is AnCap [Anarcho-Capitalist] ideals and philosophy. I have not witnessed any reasonable minded, realistic compromise. It is all about destroying anything that vaguely sniffs of people coming together, and the state.

... and actually mean it. This man claims to have been a member of the LPUK and yet he has, apparently, never read the LPUK manifesto: the entire document is a compromise between true libertarianism (or even anarcho-capitalism) and real-world feasibility.

If LPUK were anarcho-capitalist then we most certainly wouldn't support a state-funded voucher system for schools, would we? And as many commenters here have pointedly pointed out, our immigration policy is very far from the open borders ideal of AnCap.

As for the idea that the party is "all about destroying anything that vaguely sniffs of people coming together"... Well, this is just laughable—as anyone who has had to sit through one of my enthusiastic lectures on Friendly Societies will, no doubt, testify.

Mind you, one can hardly expect clarity of thinking from bloggers who claim to be "minarchists" and simultaneously think that minarchism is somehow analogous to—or requires—democracy.

Still, they're pretty hot stuff at Boaty & D, as J Demetriou modestly attests...

At Boaty & D, we do things differently, and I would argue, much better. Much better than most.

"Differently"? I dunno... It looks like the same old ill-informed aggression and petty hypocrisy to me (of which the morsels above are but the tiniest examples).

But do Boaty & D do hypocrisy, aggression, ignorance, contradiction and vapidity "much better than most"?

You bet'cha!